Megillah 11b — the Talmud in English

Mnemonic: Shin-Samekh-Dalet-Kaf

And we raise an objection:

And are there no others

kings who ruled over the entire world?

But there is Solomon,

who ruled over the entire world?!

And we answer:

His kingship did not endure,

for he was driven from his kingship in the end.

And we raise an objection:

This works well according to the one who says

that he

was a king and then a commoner,

for he did not return to his kingship in the end.

But according to the one who says

that he

was a king, then a commoner, and then a king,

for he returned in the end to his kingship,

what is there to say?

And we answer:

With Solomon, there was another matter: he ruled over the upper realms and over the lower realms,

for he also ruled over the demons.

As it is stated: “And Solomon sat upon the throne of the Lord.”

Therefore, he was not counted together with these kings, who ruled only over the lower realms.

And we raise an objection:

But there was Sennacherib, of whom it is written

that he said when he wished to conquer Jerusalem:

“Who among all the gods of these lands has saved his land from my hand,

that the Lord should save Jerusalem from my hand?”

And we answer:

There is Jerusalem, which he did not conquer

Sennacherib in the end.

And we raise an objection:

But there is Darius, of whom it is written

concerning him:

“Darius the king wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell throughout the land: May your peace increase,”

and he commanded all the kingdoms to serve the God of Israel. We see that he ruled over them all!? And we answer:

There are seven over whom he did not rule. As it is written: “It pleased Darius, and he appointed over the kingdom one hundred and twenty satraps.”

But there were one hundred and twenty-seven provinces? Rather, it is unavoidable that he did not rule over seven of them.

And we raise an objection:

But there is Cyrus, of whom it is written: “Thus said Cyrus, king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord has given me”?

And we answer:

There he was merely boasting about himself,

but in truth he did not rule over them.

It is written:

“In those days, when the king sat

upon his throne,

and he made a feast,” which implies that he made the feast at the beginning of his kingship.

And afterward it is written: “In the third year of his reign.”

The verses contradict one another!?

Rava said:

The fact that Scripture says “when he sat”—the verse does not intend to say: when he sat upon his royal throne. Rather,

what is “when he sat”?

After his mind had become settled.

For at the beginning of his kingship Ahasuerus was worried, lest Israel emerge from under his authority when the seventy years of the Babylonian exile were completed. And now, since according to his reckoning the seventy years had already been completed and they had still not been redeemed, his mind became settled.

And thus

said

Ahasuerus:

Belshazzar calculated

the following reckoning

and erred. I shall calculate

and I shall not err.

What is

this reckoning of Belshazzar?

For it is written

that the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel after they were exiled to Babylon:

“For after Babylon’s seventy years are completed

I shall attend to you

and I shall establish for you My good word, to return you to this place.” And further

it is written: “To complete the seventy years of the desolations of Jerusalem” .

And Belshazzar thought that what is written, “after Babylon’s completion,” means from the day Babylon took the kingship. That is, from the time Nebuchadnezzar took the kingship from Esarhaddon, who had been king of Assyria.

And thus said Belshazzar:

Count forty-five

years

of Nebuchadnezzar, and twenty-three of Evil-merodach,

who reigned after him,

and two

years

of his own

—of Belshazzar himself, for we find that he reigned three years—

behold,

they were

seventy

years.

He saw that seventy years had passed, and Israel had not been released from the Babylonian exile.

He brought out the vessels of the House of the Temple

[he brought out the vessels of the Temple that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem]—

and used them.

And we inquire concerning this:

And as for Nebuchadnezzar, from where do we know that he reigned forty-five years?

And we explain:

For the Master said: They were exiled in the seventh, they were exiled in the eighth. They were exiled in the eighteenth, they were exiled in the nineteenth.

And this “they were exiled in the seventh, they were exiled in the eighth”—it is one exile. And this is what he says:

They were exiled in

the year

seven of the conquest of Jehoiakim,

for Nebuchadnezzar conquered in the second year of his reign the Land of Israel, which was under the kingship of Jehoiakim, and Jehoiakim served him for three years. Afterward he rebelled against him for three years, and then Nebuchadnezzar came against him and killed him, and made his son Jehoiachin king in his place, and returned to Babylon.

His advisers said to him: The father rebelled against you, and you made his son king!?

He returned against him the following year, exiled him, and made Zedekiah king in his place.

And this is

the exile of Jehoiachin, which was

in the year

eight of

the reign of

Nebuchadnezzar,

and in the seventh year of the conquest of Jehoiakim, as we said above.

And this

“they were exiled in the eighteenth”

means in the eighteenth year

of the conquest of Jehoiakim,

for then there was

the exile of Zedekiah, which was

the year

nineteen of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.

And from where do we know that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jehoiakim in the second year of his reign?

For the Master said: In the

year

one

—the

first

of his reign—he

conquered

—

Nineveh,

which was the capital of the kingdom of Assyria, and in the

second

he conquered

Jehoiakim [the text is difficult, as explained explicitly in Rashi; see there].

And it is written: “And it came to pass in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, raised

[in the year of his reign]

the head of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, and brought him out of the prison.”

We see that Evil-merodach reigned in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin.

And now, these

eight

years that Nebuchadnezzar reigned before he conquered Jehoiachin,

and

these

that he reigned before Evil-merodach,

thirty-seven

that he reigned before Evil-merodach,

behold,

for you

forty-five

years

that

reigned.

Nebuchadnezzar reigned.

And

the fact that we said that

twenty-three

were the years of his reign

of Evil-merodach—

Gemara

it is.

And

another

two

years

of his own,

of Belshazzar himself—

behold,

they completed

seventy

years, and Israel still had not been attended to in their exile.

Belshazzar said:

Belshazzar

Now surely they will no longer be released! Bring out the vessels of the House of the Temple—

and use them.

And this is what Daniel said to him: “And against the Master of heaven you exalted yourself,

[you became arrogant toward the Master of heaven],

and the vessels of His House they brought before you

[and they brought the vessels of the Temple before you].”

And it is written: “On that night Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans was killed

[Chaldean].

And it is written: “And Darius the Mede received the kingdom when he was about sixty-two years old” .

—Belshazzar—

Ahasuerus said:

Ahasuerus

He

—Belshazzar—

erred in his calculation.

But

I shall calculate—

and I shall not err.

That is Belshazzar’s error:

Is it written “After the completion of

for Babylon are completed” is written!

the kingdom of Babylon

seventy years,” that Belshazzar counted seventy years from the day Babylon took the kingship? But it is written, “After the completion

of Babylon”!

And

what is “of Babylon”?

The exile of Babylon.

That is, from the time of the exile of Jehoiachin.

If so,

how many

years

are reduced

[subtracted] from Belshazzar’s reckoning?

Eight!

That is, the years during which Nebuchadnezzar reigned before he exiled Jehoiachin.

He calculated and added in their place

[he calculated and raised them in their place] these years:

One, that of Belshazzar,

for in his second year the seventy years according to his erroneous calculation were completed, and Ahasuerus counted one more year in which Belshazzar reigned.

And five

years

of Darius and Cyrus,

who reigned before him, and it now occurred to us that the reigns of the two of them together lasted five years.

And

Ahasuerus further counted

two

years

of his own,

for two years had already passed from the beginning of his reign.

Behold, seventy!

When Ahasuerus saw

Ahasuerus

that seventy had been completed and they had not been released

Israel from their exile,

he said: Now surely they will no longer be released! Bring out the vessels of the House of the Temple and use them.

The Satan came, danced among them, and killed Vashti .

And we wonder:

But

Ahasuerus

calculated well,

so what was his error?!

And we explain:

He too erred,

because

he should have reckoned from the desolations of Jerusalem.

As it is written: “To complete the seventy years of the desolations of Jerusalem.” And this means from the time of the exile of Zedekiah, when Jerusalem was destroyed.

And we raise an objection: And still,

ultimately, how many

years

are reduced

from Ahasuerus’s reckoning if we count from the desolations of Jerusalem?

Eleven

[eleven] years, which were from the time of the exile of Jehoiachin until the Temple was destroyed.

And

he

—Ahasuerus himself—

how many

years

did he reign? Fourteen

[fourteen].

If so,

in

the year

fourteen of his own he should have built the Temple!

Why, then, is it written

[after Cyrus permitted the building of the Temple, and accusatory letters were written and its construction was halted]:

“Then

[and thereby]

the work of the House of God that is in Jerusalem was halted,

and it remained halted until the second year of the reign of Darius, king of Persia.” We see that the Temple was not built until the second year of the second Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, who reigned after him!?

Rava said:

Those years that we counted above—

were fragmented years.

For they include years of the latter, which were absorbed into the years of the one preceding him. For example, with Darius the Mede and Cyrus, for whom we counted five years, in truth you find only four years for them, because one of the years of Cyrus’s reign was at a time when Darius was already reigning.

And likewise with the years of Nebuchadnezzar and Evil-merodach, one year of Evil-merodach was absorbed into Nebuchadnezzar’s years. If so, two years are lacking from the reckoning of the seventy, and corresponding to them the building of the Temple was delayed until the second year of the second Darius.