Resh Lakish said that the Bible says, he will flee to one of the cities.
He and not his Edim Zomemim.
Resh Lakish is an early third century Palestinian rabbi
who is also sometimes called Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, as in the previous passage.
He provides a midrash explanation for
why the false witness would not receive the normal punishment for
unintentional murder, which is exile to a city of refuge.
Much like the midrash, attributed Resh Lakish in the previous passage.
This midrash picks up on a subject pronoun in the verse, as a limiting factor.
The nudrash cites one of the biblical verses about unintentional murder.
Deuteronomy chapter 19:11 and reads, he, as specifying the person
who commits manslaughter, but not anyone else such as Wdim Zomimem.
As in the previous passage, another explanation is then suggested
based not on a midrash, but on a kal va-homer argument.
Rabbi Yohanan says, kal va-homer.
If he who did a deed intentionally is not exiled, is it not logical
that those who did not do a deed intentionally should not be exiled either?
Rabbi Yohanan, a prominent Palestinian rabbi who is a contemporary of Resh Lakish
suggest analogy between someone who murdered intentionally and
is not exiled, because exiles only prescribed for unintentional murderers.
And someone who did not do a deed, that is the Edim Zomemim
who only try to get their victim put to death, but were unsuccessful.
If the person who committed murder doesn't get sent into exile, then clearly
someone who didn't managed to commit murder should not get sent into exile.
The Talmud again rejects the kal va-homer.
This time though, the rejection challenges a different point of the kal va-homer.
The kal va-homer is premise on two syllogisms.
First, that actual murder is worse than attempted murder through testimony.
Second, that exile is a punishment.
If the punishment is not meted out for actual murder, the worse offense.
How can it be meted out for attempted murder through testimony,
the lesser offense.
The Talmud anonymous voice rejects the kal va-homer by critiquing
the second that exile is best understood as punishment.
The Talmud expresses this by producing a new kal va-homer in which exile is not
understood as punishment, but as an opportunity for an accidental murderer to
achieve atonement, but that logic implies the following.
If he who did a deed intentionally should not be exiled, because that way,
he will not get atonement, perhaps those who did not do a deed intentionally
should be exiled, because that way they will get atonement?
In other words, if one thinks of exile as atonement rather than punishment,
then maybe it is logical for the lessor criminal to have the opportunity for
a Talmud or the greater criminal did not.