We know that, for the rabbis, it takes both a forewarning and two witnesses to convict a person of a capital crime. Today’s daf asks what the relationship is between the warner and the witnesses.
The mishnah states:
Rabbi Yosei says: (Transgressors) are never executed unless his two witnesses are the ones forewarning him, as it is stated: “At the mouth of two witnesses … he who is to be put to death shall die.” (Deuteronomy 17:6)
According to Rabbi Yosei, in order to convict someone in a capital case, the witnesses and the warners need to be the same people.
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The mishnah continues with another possibility:
Alternatively: “At the mouth of two witnesses‚” that the Sanhedrin will not hear from the mouth of an interpreter.
This anonymous rabbi reads the biblical verse as teaching that the court must hear directly from the witnesses, without any intermediary. In what even then was a multilingual world, apparently the court was expected to understand multiple languages to properly hear testimony.
The Talmud understands this anonymous rabbi to be contradicting Rabbi Yosei. Because this position uses the verse differently, it isn’t available to say anything about whether the witnesses and the warners are the same people, which implies that this person doesn’t think that they have to be the same people at all.
In fact, the Talmud takes this implied position even further.
Rava says: The one forewarning about whom the sages spoke — even from his own mouth and even from the mouth of a demon.
Rava drives home the point that the warner doesn’t have to be one of the witnesses to the crime. It could even be the victim of the crime, meaning the warner may not have to be alive during the trial for their warning to be valid. In fact, says Rava, even a demon can serve as a warner.
Now, we might dismiss Rava’s words as a rhetorical exaggeration, but rhetoric always points to broader cultural discourses. So Rava’s statement offers us a picture of a demon seeing someone about to commit a crime and using their extensive knowledge of rabbinic law to properly warn the criminal of the nature of the crime and its punishment according to rabbinic law. According to Rava, such a warning is halakhically valid and holds up in court. The rabbinic court system was more expansive than many of us realize.
Read all of Makkot 6 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on April 10, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
