" Criminals who were stoned dead were afterward hanged. These are the words of Rabbi Eliezer; but the sages say none were hanged but the blasphemer and the idolator. " They hanged a man with his face toward the people, but a woman with her face toward the gallows.* These are the words of Rabbi Eliezer; but the sages say a man is hanged, but no woman is hanged.... How then did they hang the man? A post was firmly fixed into the ground, from which an arm of wood projected, and they tied the hands of the corpse together and so suspended it.
Rabbi Yossi says, " The beam simply leaned against a wall, and so they hung up the body as butchers do an ox or a sheep, and it was soon afterward taken down again, for if it remained over night a prohibition of the law would have been thereby transgressed." For it is said (Deut. xxi. 23), "His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; for he that is hanged is accursed of God,w etc. That is to say, people would ask why this one was hanged; and as the reply would needs be, " Because he blasphemed God," this would lead to the use of God's name under circumstances in which it would be blasphemed.