Ketubot 9b (ט:) — the Talmud in English

Every

man among the soldiers

who went out to the war of the House of David—

a bill of divorce

was

writing for his wife

on the condition that if he died in the war, the divorce effected by this bill would take effect retroactively, from the time the bill was written. And once Uriah went out to the war of the House of David, he had already written a bill of divorce for his wife. Since Uriah died in that war, his wife was found to have been divorced retroactively, and therefore there was no adultery here at all for which she would become forbidden.

The proof from the verse that they would write bills of divorce for their wives before going out to war is from

what is written

concerning the war of Saul: “

The three eldest sons of Jesse went; they followed Saul to the war. And the names of his three sons who went to the war were Eliab the firstborn, his second Abinadab, and the third Shammah. And David was the youngest. And the three eldest followed Saul.

And Jesse said to David his son: ‘Please take for your brothers this ephah of roasted grain, and these ten loaves of bread. And these ten cheeses you shall bring to the commander of the thousand.

And look after your brothers’ welfare, and their pledge—

take.’”

And we raised the following question about it:

What

is the explanation of the words

“and their pledge you shall take”?

Rav Yosef taught: Matters that are shared between him and her!

That is to say: Take the bond that connects a man and his wife—that is, have every man write a bill of divorce for his wife.

And from Jesse his father, King David learned to instruct the soldiers in his army to write a bill of divorce for their wives before going out to war.

Abaye said: We too have learned this

in our Mishna, in accordance with the words of Rabbi Elazar, that one who says, “I found an open entrance,” is deemed credible to prohibit his wife to himself; we do not say that he is unskilled in recognizing this matter—

for we learned in it:

A virgin is married on Wednesday.

And it follows:

On Wednesday—

yes.

So it is.

But

on Thursday—

no,

she may not be married.

And

what is the reason

that a virgin may not be married on Thursday?

Because

the Sages were concerned about

cooling of his resolve [lest his resolve cool] between the time he has intercourse with her and finds that she has already had intercourse, and the time the court would sit on the following Monday, since courts would sit on Mondays and Thursdays, as instituted by Ezra.

And for what purpose

were the Sages concerned to such an extent that they instituted that she should be married on Wednesday, in order to prevent the possibility that his resolve would cool?

If it is in order to give her the marriage contract,

shall you say that the Sages were concerned lest she be found not to be a virgin, in which case she would not be entitled to a marriage contract, like a sota who forfeits her marriage contract, and because his resolve would cool he would not deprive her of the marriage contract, but would give it to her —

This cannot be said, for

he can give it to her [if he wishes, he may give it to her].

If he does not care about losing his money and knowingly gives her a marriage settlement to which she is not entitled, why should we intervene and deprive her of it?

For if he is unconcerned about losing his money and gives her a marriage contract to which she is not entitled, of his own volition, why should we intervene and deprive her of it?

Rather,

the Sages certainly instituted this in order

to prohibit her to him.

For the Sages were concerned lest he find that she had already had intercourse and that she had committed adultery and was forbidden to him; and if he waited until the court session, his resolve would cool in the meantime, and he would not come to court to make the claim until it was too late to have her prohibited to him, and he would remain with his wife in a state of prohibition as a sota to her husband all his days.

The Gemara continues to interpret our Mishna in order to prove from it the words of Rabbi Elazar:

And he is in fact making a claim!

He certainly makes a claim in court in order to prohibit her to himself.

The Gemara examines what his claim is—

Is that not

a case

in which he claims: “I found an open entrance”,

“I found”?

It follows that when he makes the claim of an open entrance in court, he is deemed credible to prohibit her to himself. We do not say that he is unskilled in recognizing this matter.

The Gemara rejects this:

No,

the Sages were not concerned because of the claim of an open entrance.

Rather, they were concerned

that he might claim a claim concerning blood,

lest he claim that he did not find blood in the manner characteristic of virgins. With this claim, she should indeed be prohibited to him, since it is impossible to say that he is unskilled in recognizing something visible to the eye.

Rav Yehuda said that Shmuel said:

One who says, “I found an open entrance,”

is

deemed credible to deprive her of her marriage contract.

The reason the Sages deemed him credible in this matter and do not presume him to be lying is that if he hated her and therefore wanted to divorce her, rather than because he had indeed found that she had already had intercourse, he would have divorced her from the outset, before marrying her, and would not have gone to the trouble of preparing a wedding feast for nothing.

Said

in astonishment

Rav Yosef: What does this come to teach us,

that Shmuel stated this!?

But

we have learned

this law in a later Mishna:

As we learned: A betrothed man

who eats at his father-in-law’s house in Judea without witnesses

[who would know what he did with his betrothed when he secluded himself with her]

cannot make a claim concerning virginity,

[and, as the Gemara proceeds to explain, the issue is whether the matter concerns prohibiting her to him or depriving her of her marriage contract].

Because

the custom in Judea was

that

the betrothed man

would seclude himself with her

[with his betrothed] before the wedding. We therefore attribute the matter to the possibility that she had intercourse only with her betrothed, not with another man in a prohibited relationship, and she did not become a sota.

Rav Yosef infers from the Mishna: It is specifically

in Judea

[where the groom would seclude himself with the bride before the wedding] that

he cannot make

a claim concerning virginity, because we attribute the matter to his having had intercourse with her.

But in the Galilee,

where the betrothed man would not seclude himself with his betrothed until they entered the wedding canopy—

he can make

a claim concerning virginity.

And for what purpose,

does he make a claim concerning virginity?

If

it is in order

to prohibit her to him,

and this is what we learned: In Judea she is not prohibited to him, whereas in the Galilee she is prohibited to him—

this cannot be the explanation.

For if so,

in Judea—

why not

be able to make a claim concerning virginity!?

Even though he secluded himself with her, since he himself says that he did not remove her virginity during that seclusion, we should deem him credible, based on the principle that “he renders a piece of prohibited matter to himself.”

Rather, is it not

necessarily that he cannot make a claim concerning virginity in order

to deprive her of her marriage contract,

because we say that he was the one who had intercourse with her when he secluded himself with her?

And what claim

does he make—

what claim?

Is it not that he claims a claim of an open entrance?

It follows that in the Galilee he is deemed credible when he claims, “I found an open entrance,” in order to deprive her of her marriage contract.

The Gemara rejects the proof:

No,

it is not as you understood, that the Mishna is dealing with one who claims that he found an open entrance and has no proof for his words other than the claim itself. In such a case, it can be said that we should not deem him credible, lest he be lying in his claim.

Rather, the Mishna is dealing with a case

in which he claims a claim concerning blood,

and he brings clear proofs that he did not find signs of virginity: a cloth that he spread at the time of intercourse, and groomsmen who testify that no deception was perpetrated by him; indeed, he did not find signs of virginity.