Footnote

a In fact, they dismissed the poor with the contemptuous term “ʽam-ha·ʼaʹrets,” or “people of the land.” According to one scholar, the Pharisees taught that one should neither trust these with valuables, nor trust their testimony, nor entertain them as guests, nor be their guests, nor even buy from them. The religious leaders said that for one’s daughter to marry one of these people would be like exposing her bound and helpless to a beast.