In
the one case allegory was a genuine development, and might have been
adopted by the original prophet: in the other, it was reconstruction;
and the artificial un-Hebraic character of the Hellenistic commentary
was one of the causes of its disappearance from Jewish tradition. While
the Palestinian allegorists based their continuous philosophical
interpretation upon the Wisdom Books, they, at the same time, looked for
secondary meanings wherever opportunity offered, and found lessons in
letters and teachings in names. An early school of commentators was
actually known as [Hebrew: dorsh rshomot][311] or interpreters of signs,
and their method was by examination of the letters of a word, or by
comparison of different verses, to explore homilies. For instance, the
verse, "And God showed Moses a tree" (Exod. xvi. 26), by which he
sweetened the waters at Marah, symbolized, by a play on the word
[Hebrew: vyvrhu],[312] that God taught Moses the Torah, of which it is
said, "She is a tree of life" (Prov. iii. 18). Another happy example of
this method occurs in the sixth section of the Pirke Abot, where the
names in the itinerary, [Hebrew: mmtna nhlial, vmnhlial bmot] (Numb.
xxi. 19), are invested with a spiritual meaning. Whoever believes in the
Torah, it is written, shall be exalted, as it is said, "From the gift of
the law man attains the heritage of God, and by that heritage he reaches
Heaven.
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