Talmud su Isaia 24:76

Rebbi Ze`ira said, if it were written, “like them should be their worshippers”, that would be difficult; the sun’s worshippers like the sun, the moon’s worshippers like the moon¹⁰³To compare people to sun and moon would be praise.? But, like them should be their makers¹⁰⁴Ps. 115:8. This clearly refers to idols and their makers.. Rebbi Mana said, if it were written, “like them should be their worshippers”, it would not be difficult, as it is written¹⁰⁵Is. 24:23., the moon will be ashamed and the sun abashed. Rebbi Naḥman in the name of Rebbi Mana: In the future, an idol will come, spit in the face of its worshippers, make them ashamed, and disappear from the world. What is the reason? All worshippers of statues will be ashamed¹⁰⁶Ps.97:7. This homily ends the part of the Tractate devoted to idols.. Rebbi Naḥman in the name of Rebbi Mana: In the future, an idol will come, bow down before the Holy One, praise to Him, and disappear from the world. What is the reason? Bow down before Him, all gods¹⁰⁶Ps.97:7. This homily ends the part of the Tractate devoted to idols..

Great is the Torah for it gives life to those who keep it, both in this world and in the World to Come, as it is stated, For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh;³⁷Prov. 4, 22. and it states, It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones;³⁸ibid. III, 8. [and it states,] Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace;³⁹ibid. 17. and it states, She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, and happy is every one that holdeth her fast;⁴⁰ibid. 18. and it states, She will give to thy head a chaplet of grace; a crown of glory will she bestow on thee;⁴¹ibid. IV, 9. and it states, For they shall be a chaplet of grace unto thy head, and a necklace about thy neck;⁴²ibid. I, 9. and it states, Length of days is in her right hand; in her left are riches and honour;⁴³ibid. III, 16. and it states, For length of days, and years of life, and peace, will they add to thee.⁴⁴ibid. III, 2.
R. Simeon b. Judah said in the name of R. Simeon [b. Yoḥai]: Beauty, strength, riches, wisdom, old age, hoariness, honour and children are becoming to the righteous and becoming to the world; as it is stated, The hoary head is a crown of glory, it is found in the way of righteousness;⁴⁵ibid. XVI, 31. and it states, Children’s children are the crown of old men; and the glory of the children are their fathers;⁴⁶ibid. XVII, 6. and it states, The glory of young men is their strength; and the beauty of old men is the hoary head;⁴⁷ibid. XX, 29. and it states, And before His elders shall be glory.⁴⁸Isa. 24, 23. R. Simeon b. Menasia said: The seven qualifications which the Sages associated with the righteous were all realized in Rabbi [Judah the Prince] and his sons.
⁴⁹This paragraph is not in the text, but is inserted because it is referred to in the Gemara. The translation follows the text of H. [R. Jose b. Ḳisma said: Once I went on a journey when a man met me and greeted me.⁵⁰R. Jose did not return the man’s salutation. Cf. the Gemara. He asked me, ‘Rabbi, from which place do you come?’ I replied, ‘From a great city of scholars and scribes’. He said to me, ‘Rabbi, if you agreed to dwell with us in our place, I would give you a thousand thousand golden dinars and precious stones and pearls’. I replied, ‘My son, were you to give me all the silver and gold and precious stones and pearls in the world, I would not dwell in any place but in a place of Torah. Because in the hour of a man’s departure [from the world], neither silver nor gold nor precious stones and pearls accompany him but only Torah and good deeds; as it is stated, When thou walkest, it shall lead thee, when thou liest down, it shall watch over thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.⁵¹Prov. 6, 22. When thou walkest, it shall lead thee—in this world; when thou liest down, it shall watch over thee—in the grave; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee—in the World to Come. And so it is written in the Book of Psalms of David, king of Israel, The law of Thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver;⁵²Ps. 119, 72. and it states, Mine is the silver, and Mine is the gold, saith the Lord of hosts.]⁵³Hag. 2, 8.

‘But the Torah [is acquired in the form of] forty-eight’: Great is the Torah for it gives life. What is the force of the additional verse?¹⁸⁵Prov. 3, 8, It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones, quoted in the Baraitha. Should you say that [the Torah gives] health to a man’s flesh but not to his bones, come and hear: [It is written,] and marrow to thy bones. And should you say that [it gives health] to the bones but not to the heart, come and hear: And all her paths are peace. And should you say that [it gives] peace but not life, come and hear: She is a tree of life. And should you say that [it gives] life but not honour, come and hear: For they shall be a chaplet of grace unto thy head. And should you say that it brings honour but not protection, come and hear: A crown of glory will she bestow on thee.¹⁸⁶ibid IV, 9. The Heb. for bestow also means ‘to shield’. And should you say that [it gives] protection in this world but its reward is lost in the World to Come, come and hear: Length of days is in her right hand,¹⁸⁷ibid. III, 16. and it declares, O Lord, for evermore.¹⁸⁸Ps. 93, 5. And should you say that it mentions days but not years, come and hear: For length of days and years of life … will they add to thee.¹⁸⁹Prov. 3, 2.
‘R. Simeon b. Judah said in the name of R. Simeon [b. Yoḥai].’ The question was asked: To which [verses] does R. Simeon’s statement make reference? Is it to the verses preceding [the earlier part] ending with and years of life, etc.? Or is it perhaps to those which he was about to cite [in the Baraitha]? Since he enumerates seven things¹⁹⁰Counting ‘old age’ and ‘hoariness’ as one. it is proved that he refers to the earlier part because there also there are seven.
The question was asked: What is the meaning of And before His elders shall be Glory?¹⁹¹Isa. 24, 23. Come and hear: Rab said: Who has a share in the World to Come? He to whom can be applied, And before His elders shall be Glory.¹⁹²Interpreting zaḳen, ‘elder’, in the Rabbinic sense of ‘one who has acquired [ḳanah] wisdom’. Cf. Shab. 153a (Sonc. ed., p. 781).

MISHNAH: When the Synhedrion was disestablished¹⁸⁹Not really disestablished but when criminal jurisdiction was taken away from Jewish courts, transferred to the Roman administration, and only strictly religious matters were left to the High Court which was generally regarded as Synhedrion., the epithalamium stopped at wedding feasts as it was said¹⁹⁰Is. 24:9.: “They shall not drink wine in song.”

⁶¹From this point to the end of the tractate is an aggadic addendum. The greatest man among the Anakim⁶²Josh. 14, 15.—among the Anakim refers to our father Abraham whose height was equal to that of seventy-four men; his eating and drinking were of a similar proportion, equal to those of seventy-four men; so too his strength. What did he do?⁶³This is probably a reference to Gen. 25, 6, But unto the sons of the concubines … Abraham gave gifts; and he sent them away … eastward, unto the east country. He removed the sixteen⁶⁴So GRA in accordance with Gen. 25, 2-4. V, M and H incorrectly ‘seventeen’. sons of Keturah, built for them a walled city of iron and settled them in it. The sun never penetrated into it because it was exceedingly high, so Abraham handed to them disks of precious stones and pearls of which use will be made⁶⁵So GRA. V, M and H read, ‘and they will be used’. in the hereafter when the Holy One, blessed be He, will cause the sun and moon to be confounded, as it is written, When the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed,⁶⁶Is. 24, 23. because use will be made of these [disks as luminaries].
Og⁶⁷King of Bashan; Deut. 3, 11. is identical with Eliezer,⁶⁸Abraham’s servant; cf. Gen. 15, 2, XXIV, 2ff. and [he was so huge that] he could hide Abraham’s feet in the palm of his hand. Once he was rebuked [by Abraham] and from fright his tooth fell out. Abraham picked it up and made ivory beds of it in which he slept. Others say that he made of it a chair which he used⁶⁹lit. ‘and sat in it’. all his life. Who gave him to Abraham? Nimrod.⁷⁰Mentioned in Gen. 10, 8ff. Og went and built sixty cities, the smallest of which was sixty miles high, as it is stated, Threescore cities, all the region of Argob.⁷¹Deut. 3, 4. And what did he eat? A thousand oxen and the same [number of] other animals, and his drink consisted of a thousand measures. A⁷²So GRA. V, M and H read ‘and what was the’. drop of his semen weighed thirty-six pounds.⁷³V and H add ‘and so for all generations’, which makes no sense.
It was taught: What did our father Jacob do when his sons brought him the coat [stained] with blood?⁷⁴Cf. Gen. 37, 31ff. He did not believe them at all. Whence do we infer this? For it is written, But he refused to be comforted,⁷⁵ibid. 35. because no consolations are acceptable for a living person. One, however, who is dead passes naturally from the mind,⁷⁶lit. ‘he is forgotten from the heart of his own accord’. as it is stated, I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind.⁷⁷Ps. 31, 13. What then did he do? He proceeded to make a test with sheaves,⁷⁸GRA transposes the order of V, M and H by putting the test of the sheaves before that of the stones, and omits ‘according to the first opinion’. writing upon them the respective names of the tribes, their constellations and the months, and said to them, ‘I order you to prostrate yourselves before Levi because he wears the Urim and Thummim’,⁷⁹Cf. Ex. 28, 30. but they did not stand up. ‘Before Judah who is king’, but they did not stand up; but when he mentioned Joseph to them, they all stood up and bowed before Joseph. But it was not yet quite clear that he was alive. So Jacob went to the mountains, hewed twelve stones, arranged them in a row, and wrote on each the name of its tribe, the name of its constellation and the name of its month. On one stone he wrote ‘Reuben, lamb, Nisan’⁸⁰The name of the tribe, constellation and month. and similarly on every stone. He began from Simeon and said to them, ‘I order you to stand up for Reuben’, but they did not stand up. ‘For Simeon’, but they did not stand up. ‘For every tribe’, but the stones did not stand up. As soon, however, as he mentioned the name of Joseph to them, they stood up at once and bowed before Joseph’s stone.⁸¹The translation follows the text of GRA. For this reason, all the tribes were written on Joseph’s stone. Similarly, all Israel are called by Joseph’s name, as it is stated, Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock.⁸²Ps. 80, 2 where Joseph is a synonym of all Israel. So also all the heads of the families of the priests and Levites, [e.g.] Eliashib,⁸³Neh. 3, 1. because of the phrase lahashibo ’el ’abiw;⁸⁴In the story of Joseph (Gen. 37, 22), E.V. to restore him to his father. The name Eliashib is broken up in three parts corresponding in sound and meaning to these three Heb. words. From ‘For this reason’ to ’abiw is the reading of GRA. V and H have instead: ‘but from the mishmaroth, Eliashib the priest’. Elḳanah,⁸⁵Connected with ḳanah, ‘he bought’. because Potiphar had bought him [as it is stated,] And Joseph ms brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar … bought him.⁸⁶Gen. 39, 1. V inserts in parentheses, And Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Ẓaphenath, paneah, etc. (ibid. XLI, 45), which has no relevance to the subject.
When Rebekah left her father’s house⁸⁷Cf. ibid. XXIV, 59ff. she was three years old,⁸⁸V, M and H add ‘and three days’. because it is customary among kings, when a daughter is born to them, to hear of it after three days;⁸⁹H reads ‘after three years and three days’. but as her father did not hear [of her birth] he did not defile her up to that time; and now a miracle happened to her in that her father died so that he should not defile her, as it is written, Neither had any man known her,⁹⁰Gen. 24, 16. and by man only her father could be meant,⁹¹From ‘he did not’ to ‘meant’ is GRA’s reading. V, M and H read: ‘therefore a miracle happened to her that she should not be defiled’. for such was the practice of the Arameans to lie with their virgin daughters after they were three years of age,⁹²‘After … age’ is inserted by GRA; omitted in V, M and H. and then to give them away in marriage.⁹³V, M and H add: ‘on account of that which is written, Neither had any man known her, and by man only her father could be meant’.
Dinah was six years old when she bore Asenath from [her association with] Shechem,⁹⁴Cf. Gen. 34. corresponding to⁹⁵lit. ‘the number of’. the six years which Jacob served Laban in payment for the flock,⁹⁶ibid. XXXI, 41. thus completing⁹⁷lit. ‘until’. the twenty years of his service. [The Archangel] Michael then descended and took her away to the house of Potiphar.
From here onward let the man of understanding increase knowledge.⁹⁸From ‘completing the twenty years’ to ‘knowledge’ is GRA’s text. V and M have instead: ‘and he added twenty years, because he died. From this point onwards let the man of understanding increase knowledge. And Michael descended and led her to Potiphar’s house’.