EXOD781 The text (Exodus 23:1-2) is concerned with perversions of justice, and the second verse is particularly obscure. The sages elsewhere interpret it in terms of legal procedures for acquittal and conviction, concerned for questions about the size of the majority. But the verse warns us not to FOLLOW THE MANY, particularly in an evil matter, and not to assume that the many are correct in a dispute. Indeed, the matter seems to have to do with pandering either to the majority, or to the poor. Justice must be fair to all. While the tradition of focusing on how to determine the proper majority is valuable, Jeremiah’s use here [Baba Metsia 59b] must utterly recontextualize the verse. For him, the verse proves that majority rules, ignoring the beginning of the clause, which is a prohibition. The sages depend on the sense of a majority precisely because they do not insist on consensus. The matter has to be resolved in a way that tolerates dissent. In this particular case, Jeremiah argues that Eliezer must abide by the majority. But the very practice of interpretation coheres with this interpretation. The text, inscribed at Sinai, is made to justify an interpretive practice by that same practice: not what it seems to say in its context, but by a recontextualization it becomes the authority for dissenting interpretation and majority rule. If the text were not given to people, if it were still in heaven, then one could not read this text this way, nor could one use it to justify the authority of the community of interpreters against the Heavenly Voice.