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Rabbah the son of Rava says that work may even be performed on Purim itself. He derives this from a discrepancy between Esther 8:17 and 9:22. The earlier verse refers to Purim as a “good day (Yom Tov)” implying that work is prohibited. However, the latter verse does not mention “Yom Tov.” Thus the Jews accepted that they are not allowed to mourn or fast on Purim, but the work prohibition they did not accept.

And the meaning of the verse, And ‘he saw’ the Kenite²⁶⁹Verse 21. is also that Balaam [actually] saw their land, for he [the Kenite] dwelt with Amalek. And he took up his parable, and said²⁶⁹Verse 21. to them by way of counsel, Firm is thy dwelling-place, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock,²⁶⁹Verse 21. meaning: “Make thy dwelling in a firm place, and [set] thy nest in a rock, that is, depart and go away from the Amalekites, lest thou be swept away²⁷⁰Genesis 19:15. See also I Samuel 15:6. with them, and put in a firm rock thy dwelling, with Israel,” just as it is said, And the children of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up out of the city of palm-trees with the children of Judah etc.²⁷¹Judges 1:16. And Balaam continued: For if the Kenite will be wasted,²⁷²Verse 22. meaning to say: “Do not be afraid of coming [to settle] in Israel, because even if you will be wasted together with them, because when the enemy will exile Israel they will destroy all inhabitants from the Land, — ‘ad mah’ (for how long) will Ashur [Assyria] carry thee away captive?²⁷²Verse 22. He will not hold you captive forever, because you shall be redeemed from his hand together with Israel, but if you will remain with the Amalekites, your end will be to perish with them forever.” Similarly we find [this usage of ad mah in the following verses]: ‘ad mah’ O Eternal, wilt Thou be angry forever?;²⁷³Psalms 79:5. ‘ad meh’ shall my glory be put to shame?²⁷⁴Ibid., 4:3. — which [in both cases] means “for how long.” Or [it may be that the phrase ad mah] comes to emphasize the magnitude of something, such as: ‘mah’(how) weak is thy heart!;²⁷⁵Ezekiel 16:30. ‘mah’(how)was thy mother a lioness!²⁷⁶Ibid., 19:2. and [here it means] to say: “To what extent can the captivity which Assyria will take captive of you reach, and how great [can it be]? It should be of no significance at all to you, because you will not [ultimately] be destroyed, as you would be if you were together with Amalek.” Therefore Balaam continued and took up his parable about Assyria, [saying] that the time of his own land²⁷⁷Jeremiah 27:7. will come for him too, and nobody will be saved from the great and terrible day of the Eternal²⁷⁸Malachi 3:23. [which will come] upon all the nations; for ships shall come from the coast of Kittim, which refers to the Romans, and they shall afflict [the] Ashur [who is] mentioned [later on in that verse], and shall afflict Eber,²⁷⁹Verse 24. which means Israel. He is thus stating that [the Romans] will oppress both the captors [i.e., the Assyrians] and their captives [the Hebrews]; but he also — the people of Kittim [namely the Romans, as explained above] — shall come to destruction²⁷⁹Verse 24. in the end.
Thus Balaam completed his words [by foretelling] the destruction of the Kittim, who are the fourth beast²⁸⁰In Daniel’s vision of the four kingdoms [symbolized by four beasts], the fourth beast represents Rome (see Daniel 7:7). See an important note on this subject in Genesis, Vol. I, p. 350, Note 8. which will be destroyed by the hand of the Messiah, as it is said, I beheld even till the beast was slain, and its body destroyed, and it was given to be burned with fire,²⁸¹Daniel 7:11. [and the phrase here] shall come to destruction [is used] because their memory will be completely extirpated. Now it is well-known in the sayings of our Rabbis²⁸²Abodah Zarah 2b. that the fourth beast which Daniel saw²⁸⁰In Daniel’s vision of the four kingdoms [symbolized by four beasts], the fourth beast represents Rome (see Daniel 7:7). See an important note on this subject in Genesis, Vol. I, p. 350, Note 8. represents Rome who exiled us, and it is this [“beast”] which will be destroyed by the hand of the Messiah.
Now do not be astonished at this [explanation we have given above, that Kittim means Rome, and do not refute it] because the third kingdom [mentioned in Daniel]²⁸⁰In Daniel’s vision of the four kingdoms [symbolized by four beasts], the fourth beast represents Rome (see Daniel 7:7). See an important note on this subject in Genesis, Vol. I, p. 350, Note 8. was Greece, as is stated explicitly in the Book of Daniel,²⁸³Daniel 7:6. See also Ramban further on for a fuller explanation. and the Kittim are of the seed of Javan [who was the ancestor of the Greeks], as it is said, And the sons of Javan: Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim²⁸⁴Genesis 10:4. [and therefore one might think that the Romans, who are the fourth beast, i.e., the fourth kingdom, could not be the Kittim]! For it is indeed true [that Kittim are the Greeks, as is stated in the verse quoted above,²⁸⁴Genesis 10:4. but nonetheless here it refers to the Romans, who were descendants of the Greeks]. And our Rabbis admit this [that the Greeks and Romans were related], as they have said:²⁸⁵Megillah 6b. See my Hebrew commentary, p. 302, Note 86. “Italy of Greece — this is the great city of Rome,” and it is well-known that the name of the land of which [the city of] Rome forms a part, is called in their books and in their language “Italy.” [Thus it is clear that Greece and Rome are related, and therefore the Kittim, who in the Book of Genesis are described²⁸⁴Genesis 10:4. as descendants of the Greeks, refer here in the prophecy of Balaam to Rome.] But the history [of the Kittim] is similar to that of Canaan; for the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgashite, and the Hivite, they and their children and their fathers, are each of them considered an independent nation, just as it says: the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than thou.²⁸⁶Deuteronomy 7:1. The reason for this [i.e., for considering each one a separate nation], is because each one of these [seven] sons [of Canaan] became a mighty nation, and these [individual] nations were called by the names of their ancestors. But the other sons of Canaan²⁸⁷Genesis 10:17-18: the Arkite, and the Sinite, etc. who did not become strong as did their brothers, considered themselves a part of him [i.e., of Canaan].²⁸⁸See Vol. I, p. 151, for an explanation why the verse in Deuteronomy 7:1 [quoted above] counts the Canaanite as one of Canaan’s seven children, since, as we have explained, each of his seven sons founded a nation in his own right. So also the “land of Canaan” is so called because of [Canaan] the father [and not because of that particular son of his who founded the Canaanite people — since all his seven sons lived there with their peoples.²⁸⁶Deuteronomy 7:1.]. And the Philistines and Caphtorim, the sons of [Mitzraim]²⁸⁹Genesis 10:13-14. also became separate nations [whereas the other sons of Mitzraim: Ludim, Anamin etc. were known merely as descendants of Mitzraim].²⁹⁰Ibid., Verse 13. Similarly we find in the families mentioned in the section of Pinchas: [The sons of Menasheh]: of Machir, the family of the Machirites — and Machir begot Gilead; of Gilead, the family of the Gileadites.²⁹¹Further, 26:29. Here the Gileadites — descended from Gilead the son of Machir — are counted by Scripture as a separate family, although it first mentioned the family of the Machirites. This is because Gilead increased more than the other sons of Machir, and became a large family in his own right. There are many such cases [in Scripture]. Here too: The sons of Javan: Elishah and Tarshish²⁸⁴Genesis 10:4. are considered part of Javan [Greece], and they constitute the third kingdom [in the vision of Daniel], but the Kittim [who were also amongst the sons of Javan]²⁸⁴Genesis 10:4. became a mighty nation, and are [therefore] counted as the fourth kingdom [i.e., that of Rome], and it is this kingdom which will continue until the [times of the] Messiah, and it will be destroyed by him.
But Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra has confused this matter,²⁹²Ibn Ezra in his commentary to Daniel 7:14. To include all the empires in the “four kingdoms” that will rule the world, as symbolized by the four beasts, Ibn Ezra suggested that both Greece and Rome should be counted as the “third beast,” and the “fourth beast” will then be the Islamic empires of his times. Ramban totally rejects this interpretation. and introduced into it the kingdom of Ishmael [i.e., the Arabic kingdoms of his times] for their fear was fallen upon him,²⁹³Esther 8:17. and he argued: “How can one not count such a great and powerful empire [as the Arabic empire, amongst those seen in Daniel’s visions]!” This argument stems from a lack of knowledge, for each of the four kingdoms which Daniel saw, gained power one after another, and each one prevailed over its predecessor and seized the kingdom [of the world] from it. [Likewise] each one continued the enslavement and exile of Israel during the period that it ruled. Therefore Daniel saw in his dream that the Chaldeans [i.e., the Babylonians] would [be the first] to enslave us [i.e., the Jewish people], and that after them the Persians would seize the kingdom, and would [continue] to enslave us, and after them in their stead would come the Greeks; and after them the Romans would become powerful and seize the kingdom, and subjugate us until the time of the end²⁹⁴Daniel 12:9. [of the exile], for their kingdom would only come to an end by the hand of the redeemer [i.e., the Messiah]. Thus [the extent of] our exile is the duration of [rule of] the four kingdoms [Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome], and even if there will be other empires in the world contemporaneously with these four kingdoms, Scripture does not count them and Daniel did not see them [in his visions], since he did not have to see them at all in order to know the [date of the final] redemption. And indeed in the days of [the kingdoms of] Persia and Greece, and today also, there are great empires in the world, besides those of Rome and Ishmael, such as the peoples of India, Ethiopia, Rumania, the Tartars, and others. And if so, [Ibn Ezra] should have counted many kingdoms! And [another reason why Ibn Ezra is mistaken is that] it is well-known that it was the Romans who exiled us in the days of Vespasian and Titus, and not the Ishmaelites [the Arabs]; therefore wherever we are, whether under Ishmael, or [anywhere] from India, even unto Ethiopia,²⁹⁵Esther 1:1. This is a term which refers to anywhere in the known world. we are in the exile of Rome, until her memory will be destroyed and we shall be redeemed from it. Who knows, perhaps the kingdom of Ishmael will still be destroyed before the coming of the Messiah! But the fourth beast is the one which exiled us, as is said with reference to it, I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints and prevailed against them.²⁹⁶Daniel 7:21. We shall remain in this exile until the coming of the Messiah, as it is written, until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High; and the time came, and the saints possessed the kingdom.²⁹⁷Ibid., Verse 22. “The Ancient of Days” is a synonym for G-d the Eternal. And anyone who understands the visions of Daniel will find this interpretation clearly indicated there. For in the second vision Daniel saw the pushing ram,²⁹⁸Ibid., 8:4. which was explained to him as [representing the] kingdom of Persia,²⁹⁹Ibid., Verse 20. and the rough he-goat is the king of Greece, and the great horn is the first king³⁰⁰Ibid., Verse 21. Alexander [of Greece], who prevailed over Persia. And when he was strong, his kingdom was broken,³⁰¹Ibid., Verse 8. in the place whereof four stood up,³⁰²Ibid., Verse 22. these being his four generals [Ptolemy, Seleucus, Antigonus and Lysimachus] who reigned in his stead after his death. And Scripture mentions: And ‘out of one of them’ came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the beauteous Land³⁰³Ibid., Verse 9. and it says concerning it, Yea, it magnified itself, even to the prince of the host, and from him the continual burnt-offering was taken away.³⁰⁴Ibid., Verse 11. Thus it clearly refers to the kingdom of Rome, which came “out of Greece” since [the Kittim referred to by Balaam, which means, as explained above, Rome] were of his sons [i.e., Javan’s,²⁸⁴Genesis 10:4. who is the ancestor of the Greeks], and it is that kingdom [Rome] which removed the continual burnt-offering³⁰⁴Ibid., Verse 11. [through destroying the Second Temple]. Therefore [Daniel] calls both of them [Greece and Rome] one beast, this being the rough he-goat,³⁰⁰Ibid., Verse 21. one of whose [four] horns waxed great³⁰³Ibid., Verse 9. and removed the continual burnt-offering.³⁰⁴Ibid., Verse 11. There are further such proofs there [in the Book of Daniel, that the fourth kingdom means the Romans]; however the tradition of our Rabbis, of blessed memory, [that the “fourth beast” is the kingdom of Rome] is true [in its own right] and needs no other support.

עין יעקב, “the well of Yaakov.” According to the plain meaning of the text “someone who had emerged from the ‘well’ of Yaakov” (Ibn Ezra). We find a similar expression pertaining to offspring of Yehudah in Isaiah 48,1, where the words וממי יהודה “and have issued forth from the waters of Yehudah,” also mean that the people the prophet refers to are descended from Yaakov through Yehudah.
The words אל ארץ דגן, “to a land of grain,” clearly must be understood as “in a land of grain, etc.” We have a similar use of the word אל in Kings I 8,35 where Solomon describes people praying at the Temple as ויתפללו אל המקום הזה, “and they will pray to this place.” Clearly, he did not mean that their prayers should be directed at the “place,” but, to G’d Who is perceived as being at that place.
If Moses speaks of the inheritance of the land in conjunction with Yaakov (instead of Avraham or Yitzchok), this is to preclude anyone thinking that other descendants of the two senior patriarchs had any claim to that land. This is also why we never find the expression עין אברהם or עין יצחק as it would have included other sons of Avraham, or Esau, a son of Yitzchok. We have pointed out repeatedly that the Jewish people have an exclusive claim to four gifts: prophecy, Torah, the land of Israel, and resurrection of the bodies after an interval.
The exclusivity of these gifts to the Jewish people can be attributed directly to quotes from Moses’ own lips. Concerning the gift of prophecy, he said in Deut. 18,15: “a prophet among you, one of your brethren, someone like me, etc.” He meant: “just as I am a direct descendant of Yaakov, so any future prophet will be a direct descendant of Yaakov.” This verse teaches that prophecy is not to be found except among the Jewish people.
If you were to counter that we do find Bileam as a prophet among the Gentile nations, the fact is that Bileam was not a prophet at all; he had the occasional communication from G’d, a communication described as מקרה, as we know from the Torah itself which described G’d ‘s communication to him as ויקר instead of as ויקרא, i.e. a happening which was of a totally irregular nature. Even on that occasion, G’d communicated with him only for the sake and honour of the Jewish people (compare author’s words on Numbers 23,16 and 24,4). Alternatively, the only reason Bileam was granted prophetic powers was to silence the Gentiles’ argument that if G’d had given them prophets they too would have risen to the same moral and ethical levels as had the Jewish people (Bamidbar Rabbah 20,1).
The exclusivity of the gift of the Torah to the Jewish people is proved by the verse (Deut. 33,4) “Moses has commanded the Torah to us, an hereditary gift for the community of Yaakov.”
The exclusivity of the gift of Eretz Yisrael to direct descendants of Yaakov is proved by our verse mentioning עין יעקב אל ארץ דגן ותירוש. History has proved that during the many centuries of the Jewish people being exiled from that land no other nation ever succeeded in making it a land flowing with milk and honey. This is why it was never settled successfully by another nation for any period of time.
The resurrection of the dead being something reserved for the Jewish people is attested to by the words in our verse אף שמיו יערפו טל, “even its heavens drip with dew.” The word שמיו, “its heavens,” refers to the expression עין יעקב at the beginning of the same verse, meaning that the dew which in the future will be the mechanism awakening the dead to rebirth comes from the part of heaven ערבות, in which the descendants of Yaakov ride in the interval. In other words, the Yeshurun described in verse 26 are the souls of the Jewish people after death awaiting the call to be resurrected. This part of heaven contains the dew which will reunite these souls with their bodies. Other nations do not share this privilege; their souls will not be reunited with their bodies. This is what Daniel 12,2 referred to when he spoke about many awakening from their slumber, the “many” being Jews. The word רבים, chosen by Daniel as the ones who will be resurrected is a word which has been used to describe Jews on other occasions in the Bible, such as in Esther 8,17 ורבים מעמי הארץ מתיהדים, which, according to Sifri Haazinu 306 (end of Deut. 32,2), refers to Jews becoming proper Jews again. According to Rabbi Simai there, Moses calls the heaven the domain of the soul, whereas he refers to the earth as the domain of the body. He calls on the dew to reunite the two. People who studied and practiced Torah on earth are as if “heavenly,” and the curse that they will die (permanently) as described by David in Psalms 82,7 does not apply to them. Obviously, the people he speaks of can only be the Jewish people.
We also find that Isaiah prophesied about the future of the Gentile nations saying that מתים בל יחיו, רפאים בל יקומו, “they are dead, they can never live; shades, they can never rise” (Isaiah 26,14), whereas in verse 19 of the same chapter he writes: ”your dead will live, let corpses arise! Awake and shout for joy, you who dwell in the dust, for your dew is like the dew on fresh growth, you make the land of shades come to life.” The meaning of the two verses is that a revival of the dead will occur only for the Jewish people. You should know that all of the Jewish people will be resurrected physically, however they will then experience a judgment which will determine their future. This is why Daniel 12,2 describes that some “will remain alive indefinitely whereas others will be consigned to everlasting abhorrence.” This is also what the psalmist Assaph referred to in (Psalms 73,20) בעיר צלמות תבזה, “when awake you despise death.” The word בעיר in that verse has its root in ער, awake, and is to be understood as בהעיר, “when in a state of wakefulness.” We encounter similar constructions, such as in Isaiah 23,11 where the word לשמיד is to be understood as if the prophet had written להשמיד, “to destroy.” Targum Yonathan renders the verse in Psalms 73,20 as “like the dream of a person who is awakened from a dream to face a day of judgment when I awaken them from their graves in anger to announce their permanent death.” We have also been taught in a Baraitha (Rosh Hashanah 16) that when the day of judgment arrives there will be three groups of people. One group comprises the totally righteous, one the totally wicked, irredeemable, and one group consists of the ones who fall in between the other two categories. The first group will be immediately inscribed and sealed in the Book of the righteous and their fate will be sealed so that they can immediately proceed to the hereafter. The second group will be consigned to hell immediately, in accordance with the verse from Daniel which we already quoted. This proves to you that even the totally wicked (Jews) will first be awakened before being consigned to their eventual destination. For the wicked this resurrection of their bodies will actually be a punishment rather than a reward seeing that they will be judged in Gehinom both body and soul in one of the seven levels of that domain.
Concerning the people who fall between the two extremes of being totally righteous and totally wicked, the Talmud Rosh Hashanah 17 says that they will express their pains during the punishments endured but, if their merits exceed their demerits, they will rise from the pain inflicted upon them and join their brethren in the hereafter reserved for the righteous. The ones whose demerits exceed their accumulated merits, however, will descend into Gehinom for a period of 12 months. At the end of that period their bodies will cease to exist and their souls will be burned, the remains being scattered beneath the soles of the feet of the righteous inhabiting these celestial regions. The fact that the Talmud describes their bodies as “ceasing,” proves that they had descended to Gehinom first both as bodies and souls.
In order to hint that the resurrection of the bodies is something reserved exclusively for the Jewish people, Moses mentioned “dew,” and immediately afterwards: “hail to you Israel.” Our sages in the Sifri 340, commenting on the words in 34,3 where the Torah describes the extent of the vision granted to Moses, עד הים האחרון, “as far as the western sea” in 34,3, add: that instead of reading these words as עד הים האחרון, we should read them as עד היום האחרון, “until the final day.”