“ WITNESS SHOULD HIMSELF SUFFER BANISHMENT; HE ONLY RECEIVES FORTY [LASHES] .
Gemarah Should not the opening words of the Mishnah have been rather, ‘How do witnesses not become liable [to punishment] as zomemim?’ Moreover, since we read in a subsequent Mishnah: But if they [i.e. counter-witnesses] said to them, ‘How can you testify at all, since on that very day you were with us at such and such a place?’ these are condemned as zomemim,’6 does not ‘these’ imply that those in the foregoing instances are not treated as zomemim? ”