Megillah 11b (יא:) — the Talmud in English

Mnemonic: Sh-S-D-K

And we raise an objection:

Are there no others

among the kings who ruled over the entire world?

But there is Solomon,

who ruled over the entire world!

And we answer:

His reign did not endure,

as he was ultimately removed from his kingdom.

And we raise an objection:

This works well according to the one who says

that he

was a king and then a commoner,

as he did not ultimately return to his kingship.

But according to the one who says

that he

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

again, as he ultimately returned to his kingship,

what can be said?

And we answer:

There was another matter concerning Solomon: He ruled over the upper realms and the lower realms,

as he also ruled over the demons.

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

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

And we raise an objection:

But there was Sennacherib, concerning whom it is written

that he said when he wished to conquer Jerusalem:

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

that the Lord should rescue Jerusalem from my hand?”

And we answer:

There is Jerusalem, which

Sennacherib ultimately did not conquer.

And we raise an objection:

But there is Darius, concerning whom it is written

about him:

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

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

There were 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 must be that he did not rule over seven of them.

And we raise an objection:

But there is Cyrus, concerning whom it is written: “So said Cyrus, king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord, God of heaven, 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

was enthroned, etc., he made a feast,” which implies that he made the feast at the beginning of his reign.

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

The verses contradict one another!

Rava said:

The fact that the verse says “when he was enthroned” does not mean that the verse intends to say: at the time when he sat upon his royal throne. Rather,

what is the meaning of “when he was enthroned”?

After his mind had become settled.

At the beginning of his reign, Ahasuerus had been worried that Israel might emerge from his control when the seventy years of the Babylonian exile were completed. Now, since according to his calculation the seventy years had already been completed and they had still not been redeemed, his mind became settled.

And so

said

Ahasuerus:

Belshazzar calculated

the following reckoning

and erred. I will calculate

and I will not err.

What is

this reckoning of Belshazzar?

As it is written

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

“For when Babylon’s seventy years are completed,

I will attend to you

and fulfill for you My good word, to restore you to this place.” And it is further

written: “To complete the seventy years of the desolation of Jerusalem.” .

Belshazzar understood that the phrase “when Babylon’s seventy years are completed” meant 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 so Belshazzar said:

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, as we find that he reigned for three years—

behold,

they were

seventy

years.

When he saw that seventy years had passed and Israel had not been redeemed from the Babylonian exile,

he brought out the vessels of the Temple

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

and used them.

And we inquire:

From where do we know that Nebuchadnezzar reigned for forty-five years?

And we explain:

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

The statement “They were exiled in the seventh year; they were exiled in the eighth” refers to one exile. And this is what it means:

They were exiled in

the year

seven of the conquest of Jehoiakim,

for Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Land of Israel, which was under the rule of Jehoiakim, in the second year of his reign, and Jehoiakim served him for three years. He then rebelled against him for three years, at which point Nebuchadnezzar came against him and killed him, appointed his son Jeconiah in his place, and returned to Babylonia.

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

The following year he came against him again, exiled him, and appointed Zedekiah in his place.

And this is

the exile of Jeconiah, which was

in the year

eight of the

reign of

Nebuchadnezzar,

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

And this statement,

“They were exiled in the eighteenth year,”

means in the eighteenth year

of the conquest of Jehoiakim,

as that 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

first

of his reign, he

conquered

the

first

—

Nineveh,

which was the capital of the Assyrian kingdom—and in the

second

he conquered

Jehoiakim [and the verse is read as kadrish, as explained by Rashi; see there].

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

in the year of his reign,

lifted up the head of Jeconiah, king of Judah, and brought him out of prison.”

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

And now, these

eight

years that Nebuchadnezzar reigned before he conquered Jeconiah,

and these

thirty-seven

that he reigned before Evil-merodach,

behold,

there are

forty-five

years

that

Nebuchadnezzar

reigned.

And the statement that

twenty-three

years were the years of the reign of

Evil-merodach

—

it is a tradition of the Gemara.

And

another

two

years

of his own,

of Belshazzar himself—

behold,

he completed

seventy

years, and Israel still had not been redeemed from its exile.

Belshazzar said:

Now surely they will never again be redeemed! I will bring out the vessels of the Temple

—

and use them.

And this is what Daniel said to him: “But you have exalted yourself against the Lord of Heaven

—you have acted arrogantly against the Master of Heaven—

and the vessels of His House they brought before you

—they brought the vessels of the Temple before you.”

And it is written: “On that very night Belshazzar the king was slain

by the Chaldeans.” And it is written: “And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.” .

Ahasuerus said:

He

—Belshazzar—

erred greatly

in his calculation. But

I will calculate

and I will not err.

This was Belshazzar’s error:

Is it written,

“When the seventy years of the

kingdom of Babylon

are completed,” as Belshazzar counted the seventy years from the day Babylon took the kingship? Rather,

“when the seventy years

for Babylon are completed” is written!

And

what is the meaning of “for Babylon”?

For the Babylonian exile.

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

If so,

how many

years

must be deducted

from Belshazzar’s calculation?

Eight!

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

He calculated and added their replacements

—he calculated and added in their place—the following years:

One, of Belshazzar,

for in his second year, according to his mistaken calculation, the seventy years were completed, and Ahasuerus counted another year during which Belshazzar reigned.

And five

years

of Darius and Cyrus,

who reigned before him; and at this point we might think that their two reigns together lasted five years.

And Ahasuerus counted another

two

years

of his own,

as two years had already passed since the beginning of his reign.

Behold, seventy!

Once Ahasuerus saw

that

seventy had been completed and Israel had not been redeemed

from its exile,

he said: Now surely they will never again be redeemed! I will bring out the vessels of the Temple and use them.

Satan came, danced among them, and killed Vashti.

And we wonder:

But

Ahasuerus

calculated correctly;

what, then, was his error?!

And we explain:

He too erred greatly,

because

he should have counted from the desolation of Jerusalem. As it is written: “To complete the seventy years of the desolation of Jerusalem.” This means from the time of the exile of Zedekiah, when Jerusalem was destroyed.

And we raise an objection: Nevertheless,

ultimately, how many

years

must be deducted

from Ahasuerus’s calculation if we count from the desolation of Jerusalem?

Eleven

—eleven years that elapsed from the time of the exile of Jeconiah until the Temple was destroyed.

And

he

—Ahasuerus himself—

how many

years

did he reign? Fourteen.

If so,

in

the year

fourteen of his reign he should have built the Temple!

Why, then, is it written

—after Cyrus permitted the construction of the Temple and denunciatory letters were written and its construction was halted—

“Then

the work of the House of God in Jerusalem ceased,

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 overlapping years.

Some of the years of the later king were included within the years of the king before him. For example, concerning Darius the Mede and Cyrus, for whom we counted five years, in truth one finds only four years between them, because one of Cyrus’s years of reign occurred while Darius was already reigning.

Likewise, among the years of Nebuchadnezzar and Evil-merodach, one year of Evil-merodach’s reign was included within Nebuchadnezzar’s years. Consequently, two years are missing from the calculation of the seventy, and correspondingly the construction of the Temple was delayed until the second year of the second Darius.