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That ruling teaching increased liability could not be the opinion of Rabbi Ishmael or Rabbi Akiva. It could not belong to Rabbi Ishmael because he says that one can be liable only for oaths concerning the future, not ones about the past.
Why could it not be the opinion of Rabbi Akiva? The other part of the "two that are four" ruling says, "There are two types of awareness of impurity that are really four. One can forget that he is impure and eat sacrifices or enter the Temple – these are two. The other two are when one remembers that he is impure, but forgets that these are sacrifices that he is eating, or that it is the Temple area that he is entering." We know, however, that Rabbi Akiva does not make one liable for the second type of unawareness.
Counter-argument:
We could still say that the ruling is in agreement with both Rabbi Ismael and Rabbi Akiva, but for the other two transgressions, one is not liable to bring a sacrifice but only to receive lashes.
Art: Discussing The Talmud by Isidor Kaufmann
Oaths can be of two types: to do something, or not to do it. For example, "I will eat this bread" or "I will not eat this bread." These are the oaths explicitly mentioned in the Torah. However, one can derive the same two types of oaths related to the past, where the person swears that he did something, or didn't do it. If made inadvertently, all four types require the offender to bring a variable-type offering, which depends on his means.
(Here the Talmud digresses from oaths to discuss other cases of "two that are in reality four." It will not come back to oaths until after eighteen pages.)
But why study oaths right after Makkot (lashes)? Because one of the last subjects in Makkot was multiple penalties for one transgression, and "two that are four" is formulated similarly.
Art: Still Life with Bread and Wine Glass by Isaac Luttichuys
The total number of commandments in the Torah is 613. This can also be seen from the verse “Moses commanded us the Torah as inheritance”. The numerical value of the word Torah is 611, plus the two commandments pronounced by God Himself make up 613.
King David established 11 ethical and moral requirements on which to base the 613.
Isaiah came and established them on six: “Walk with righteousness, speak with fairness, spurn extortionate profit, avoid suspicions of taking a bribe, seal the ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shut the eyes from seeing evil.”
Michah established them on three: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.
Habakkuk established them on one: "The righteous person shall live through his faith".
Art: North-West Passage by John Everett Millais
Excision (karet) is also translated as being cut off. One opinion is that it entails both the premature death of the sinner and the loss of his future generations. "Premature death" is death at the ages of fifty through fifty-nine, or even at the ages of sixty through seventy-nine if the death is sudden.
Rabbi Chananya ben Gamliel also said, "If a person who commits a single transgression punishable by being cut off forfeits his life, then if he performs a single mitzvah, how much more so should his life be given to him."
Rabbi Shimon says that you can derive this better. The verses say, "My laws by which you shall live... The souls that do incest will be cut off." We see from here that whoever desists and does not do a transgression is given a reward of the one who performs a mitzvah.
Art: The Happy Soldier by David Teniers the Younger
The attendant of the court binds his hands on either side of the post, grasps his garments, and pulls them away from the area to be lashed, and if they tear, they tear. A stone is placed behind the one being lashed, and the attendant stands on it with the strap in his hand. The whip is made of two calfskin straps with additional straps of donkey hide; the whip's handle is one handbreadth, and the length of it is such that its tip should reach the beginning of the stomach when he is lashed across his back.
The reader reads appropriate verses to him. If he died as a result of lashing, the attendant is not liable, but if the attendant gave an extra blow and he died, the attendant goes into exile like all who kill by mistake. If the lashed one lost control of his bodily functions and soiled himself, he is exempt from any further lashes.
Art: A Wife Beating her Husband by Bartholomeus Molenaer
If a nazir was drinking wine all day, he receives only one set of lashes, following the first warning in the morning. If they kept warning him, and he kept drinking, he is liable for each warning. Similarly, if he was in the cemetery all day, he receives one set of lashes, but if they warned him against every entry, he is liable every time. If he was shaving his head all day, he is liable once, but if they warned him about every hair, he is liable every time.
There is a case where one plows a single furrow and is liable for eight prohibitions: if he plows with an ox and a donkey, and they are consecrated, and he covers mixed species in a vineyard, and he does so on a Sabbatical years and on a Yom Tov; and he is both a Kohen and a nazir, plowing in a cemetery.
Art: A young man drinking from a silver tankard by Karel van Mander III
These prohibitions include: one who makes a bald spot on his head in mourning for a dead person; one who rounds (shaves off) the corner of his head; one who destroy the corner of his beard with a razor; one who in anguish makes a single cut in his flesh over a deceased person.
One who makes a single cut over five dead people, or one who makes five cuts over one dead person, is liable for lashes for each dead person and for each cut.
For rounding the corners of the head, one gets two sets of lashes, one for one side and one for the other.
For destroying the five corners of the beard, a person is liable to five sets of lashes. Rabbi Eliezer says that if he cut them as one, he deserves only one set. One is not liable unless he shaves his beard with a razor, but Rabbi Eliezer makes him liable even for shaving with planes.
Art: Head Of A Bearded Man by Peter Paul Rubens
