Cantico dei cantici 1:8 Midrash: Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Eikhah Rabbah, Shemot Rabbah & Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition)

And it is written (Song of Songs 1:8) "If you do not know, you fairest among the women, etc." and (Devarim 28:47-48) "Because you would not serve the L–rd your G–d … you will serve your foes, etc."

Once, R. Yochanan b. Zakkai went up to Maon Yehudah, where he saw a young girl picking barley from under the dung of a horse, whereupon he asked (the bystanders): Did you see that young girl? What is she? They: A Hebrew. He: Who owns this horse? They: An Arab rider. R. Yochanan to his disciples: All of my days I was aggrieved over this verse, reading it and not knowing what it meant — "If you do not know, you fairest among the women" — If you did not wish to subserve Heaven, you will subserve gentiles. If you did not wish to pay the half-shekel for a head to Heaven, you will pay fifteen shekels in the kingdom of your foes.

There was an incident involving Miriam daughter of Nakdimon for whom the Sages alloted five hundred gold dinars for a basket of perfume each day. She nonetheless stood and cursed them and said to them: ‘Allot that to your daughters!’¹⁷⁸She viewed this huge sum as insufficient. Rabbi Aḥa said: ‘We, too, answered amen after her.’¹⁷⁹From the perspective of the Sages it was a huge sum. Rabbi Elazar said: I will see the consolation if I did not see her gathering barley under the hooves of horses in Akko. I read in her regard this verse: “If you do not know, the fairest among women, go you out in the footsteps of the sheep and herd your kids [gediyotayikh]” (Song of Songs 1:8). Do not read gediyotayikh, but rather, your corpses [geviyotayikh].