Comentários de Citação sobre I Samuel 12:5

צדקה ממני; she is more righteous than I, for I had declared her guilty of being burned to death while she was innocent, seeing she is pregnant from me and has not acted like a harlot. Our sages in Makkot 23 as well as in Bereshit Rabbah 85,12 say that there are basically three locations where the Holy Spirit,רוח הקודש , was manifest [was needed to confirm a verdict. Ed.] One was the court of Shem, son of Noach. This is based on the word ממני in our verse not meaning “than me, Yehudah,” but “from Me, G’d.” [although Shem himself was no longer alive at the time Tamar’s trial came up, his grandson Ever, probably in conjunction with others maintained the court he had founded, which was administering the seven Noachide (universal laws for all of mankind) laws at the time. Ed.] The sages understand that when the verdict was passed on Tamar a heavenly voice was heard saying that Tamar’s pregnancy by Yehudah had been decreed by G.d, “from Me.” The second such instance was in the court conducted by the prophet Samuel. They base this on Samuel I 12,5 ויאמר עד, G’d confirming that the prophet had dealt fairly with the whole people during his being the supreme authority, before a King was appointed. Without this confirmation we only had his word for it. The third example was the court of King Solomon, during the famous trial of two women claiming a live baby as her own and the dead one as belonging to her adversary. (Kings I 3,27.) A heavenly voice confirmed Solomon’s verdict [which from a purely halachic point of view was quite unsubstantiated. Ed.] The words היא אמו, “she is his mother,” then were not said by Solomon but by G’d. G’d’s confirmation of Tamat’s innocence was needed as people could have argued that while it was true that she had slept with Yehudah, who was to say that other men had not also slept with her and that she was actually pregnant by someone else? The Talmud concludes by citing the heavenly voice as saying ממך יצאו כבושים, “secrets unknown to others are revealed by Me.” [according to Rashi on Makkot 23 the fact that in due course Tamar’s and Yehudah’s son became the forerunner of the Davidic dynasty proved that the seed she had carried was that of Yehudah, both Tamar and Yehudah being of Royal descent, -Tamar as the daughter of Malki Tzedek King of Shalem, and Yehudah by dint of the destiny predicted for him by his father on his deathbed.] There is a variant reading which says that as a result of Yehudah’s admission, G’d decided to appoint him as the founder of the future Davidic dynasties, and that the line ונכבשה הארץ לפניכם, “the land will become conquered before you,” in Numbers 32,29 is addressed to the leading tribe, Yehudah. This is based on the wordכבושים in the Talmud being read as ממך יצאו כובשים, “that conquerors will emerge from your loins.”

According to a Midrashic approach found in Makkot 23 after Yehudah had said צדקה, “she is righteous,” a heavenly voice was heard adding the word ממני, “from Me;” i.e. G’d informed the judges and Tamar that He had guided matters in such a way that Tamar would become pregnant by Yehudah. In that connection the Talmud goes on to say that we know of only three instances where the Holy spirit took an active part in judicial proceedings of a terrestrial court to assure a certain outcome. One was the court founded by Shem; the second was the court presided over by the prophet Samuel; the third was the court presided over by King Solomon. In the case of the court founded by Shem and known as “his court” hundreds of years later, the Holy Spirit intervened clearing Tamar of all guilt. The Holy Spirit again intervened in the court of Samuel as we know from Samuel I 12,5 “G’d is witness, and His anointed is witness, to your admission this day that you found nothing in my possession.” [Samuel had challenged the people to list any wrong he had committed against anyone of them or whose property he had made use of by citing his authority as ruling judge. Ed.] In that paragraph the answer should have been in the plural, i.e. the people should have been quoted as saying: “we are witness.” The fact that the author of the Book of Samuel refers to the singular is proof that it was G’d answering on behalf of the people. The third time the Holy Spirit interfered in the deliberations by a terrestrial court was when Solomon heard the case of two women each of whom claimed the surviving baby as her own (Kings I 3,26). At that time the Book of Kings has the mother of one of the babies call out: “give the surviving baby to her, do not kill it, for she is its mother.” The words “she is its mother,“ were added by the Heavenly Voice, whereas the baby’s true mother only said the words “give the surviving baby to her and do not kill it.”

עד הגל הזה ועדה המצבה, “both the mound and the monument are to serve as witness, etc.” After Lavan had already said in verse 50 that G’d is a witness, etc., why did Lavan have to repeat here “This mound or monument is a witness?” Lavan did so only in order to make both heaven and earth his witness. We find that the prophet Samuel did something similar when he made the Jewish people take an oath (Samuel I 12,5 and again in verse 6 of that chapter) when he said to them: “the Lord is witness and His anointed is witness, etc.”