Sanhedrin 96a (צו.) — the Talmud in English

He said to him,

the Holy One, blessed be He:

Go!

and change your appearance

—go and alter yourself, so that they will not recognize you.

Sennacherib asked him:

How shall I change myself

—how can I alter my appearance so that they will not recognize me?

He said to him: Go, bring me scissors, and I shall cut your hair

—go and bring me scissors, and I shall cut your hair, and in this way they will not recognize you.

Sennacherib asked him:

From where shall I bring them

—from where shall I bring scissors?

He said to him: Enter that house and bring them

—enter this house before you and bring them from there.

He went and found them

—he went to that house and found scissors there.

Ministering angels came and appeared to him as men

and

they were grinding date pits

—they were grinding date kernels.

He said to them,

Sennacherib:

Give me scissors!

They said to him: Grind one griva

measure

of date pits, and we will give you

scissors.

He ground one griva of date pits, and they gave him scissors.

And this is what is stated: “With a hired razor on the other side of the river,” for they gave him the razor—the scissors—as payment for having performed work for them that is performed by a river, namely, grinding with a mill.

By the time he came—

it had become dark

—by the time he returned to the Holy One, blessed be He, the day had grown dark.

The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him:

Vsevышnii:

Go, bring fire

—go and bring fire, so that I can see and cut your hair.

He went and brought fire.

As he was blowing on it

as Sennacherib blew on the fire,

the fire caught his beard

—the fire became attached to his beard.

He went and cut the hair of his head and his beard

—he cut off the hair of his head and beard.

They said: This is what

is meant by the verse concerning the hair: “He shall shave, etc., the head,” whereas concerning the beard

it is written: “And he shall utterly consume the beard,”

which is an expression of destruction, because the beard was completely consumed by the fire.

Rav Pappa said: This is what people say: If you scorch an Aramean—

and it pleases him

—if you singe the Aramean and he is pleased by it, meaning that he has not yet become angry over it,

set fire to his beard

—kindle a fire in his beard,

and you will not have exhausted your ridicule of him

—and do not stop mocking him.

Sennacherib went

Sennacherib,

and found a plank from the ark of Noah

—he found one beam from Noah’s ark.

He said:

This beam

is the great deity who saved Noah from the Flood

—this is the great deity who saved Noah from the Flood!

Sennacherib said:

Sankheriv:

If that man goes and succeeds

—if I go and succeed,

I shall bring my two sons as an offering before you

—I shall offer my two sons before you!

His sons heard

this—that their father wished to kill them,

and they killed him

—they themselves killed their father.

This is what is written: “And it came to pass, when he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his deity, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword, etc.” “House of Nisroch” is an expression derived from neser, plank. Sennacherib worshipped that plank, which he had made into his deity. The verse implies that because he worshipped there, his sons killed him.

Dom Niserokha» — ot slova «neser», doska. Sankheriv poklonilsia etoi doske, kotoruiu sdelal svoim bogom. Iz stikha sleduet, chto ego synovia ubili ego iz-za togo, chto on poklonilsia tam.

And this is in accordance with what we said above: Sennacherib said that if his deity granted him success, he would offer his two sons before it. His sons heard his words and killed him.

And since the Gemara had spoken about the angel who killed Sennacherib’s army, the Gemara cites the episode of Abraham’s war against the kings, where too there was an angel who assisted Abraham.

It is written concerning Abraham’s war against the kings:

“And he divided himself against them by night, he and his servants, and struck them, etc.” Rabbi Yohanan said: That angel who was sent to Abraham—

“Night” was his name,

and he assisted him in winning the war.

And from where do we know that there is an angel whose name is Night?

As it is stated: “And the night said: A male child is conceived.”

And Rabbi Yitzḥak Nappaḥa said:

The meaning of “and he divided himself against them by night” is

that he performed an act of night with him,

for the stars of the night fought on his behalf, as

it is stated

concerning Barak’s war against Sisera:

“From heaven they fought; the stars from their courses fought against Sisera.”

Reish Lakish said: The words of the grinder are better than the words of the grinder [

the words of Rabbi Yitzḥak Nappaḥa are better than those of Rabbi Yohanan, who is called in several places throughout the Talmud “son of the grinder” ].

It is further written concerning Abraham’s war against the kings:

“And he pursued them as far as Dan.”

Rabbi Yohanan said: Once that righteous man reached Dan—

his strength weakened,

because

he saw the descendants of his descendants who were destined to worship idolatry in Dan

as it is stated

concerning the golden calves that Jeroboam made for idolatry:

“And he placed one in Bethel, and the other he placed in Dan.”

And that wicked man,

Sisera,

did not prevail—

until he reached Dan. As it is stated: “From Dan was heard the snorting

of his horses.”

Rabbi Zeira said: Although Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi sent

these three statements:

A.

Be careful to honor an elderly person

who forgot his learning because of circumstances beyond his control

because he should be honored, since his forgetting resulted from circumstances beyond his control.

B.

And be careful with the veins

of a bird, which must be cut so that the blood will flow out, since the bird is roasted whole at once, and is not cut up and salted like the flesh of a wild animal or domesticated animal,

in accordance with Rabbi Yehuda,

C.

And be careful to honor the children of amei ha-aretz

who became Torah scholars, because

from them Torah will emerge,

as Shmaya and Avtalyon were descendants of Sennacherib, and descendants of Haman studied Torah in Bnei Brak.

And although Rabbi Yehuda said that one must be careful to honor the children of amei ha-aretz, nevertheless,

as for this matter

below, that Nebuchadnezzar merited great honor because of a minor act that he performed—he ran four steps in honor of the Holy One, blessed be He—

we inform them of it. They too merit that honor because of the slight merit that their father possessed.

For they too merit that same honor because of the slight merit that their father possessed .

The prophet Jeremiah asked:

“You are righteous, O Lord, when I contend with You; yet I will speak judgments with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are all who deal treacherously at ease? You have planted them; they have also taken root; they grow; they have also brought forth fruit.”

Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why did Nebuchadnezzar succeed and conquer Jerusalem?!

What did they answer him

—what answer did they give him from Heaven?

“If you have run with footmen and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And in a land of peace you trust, how will you do in the pride of the Jordan?”

This is analogous to a man who

boasted and

said: I can run

a distance of

three parasangs

which is a great distance, even

before horses,

which run swiftly, and even

among marshes of water,

where it is difficult to run.

A certain pedestrian

a man traveling on foot

happened upon him. He ran before him

a distance of

three mil

a mil is one quarter of a parasang

on dry land—

and became exhausted

—he grew tired.

They said to him: If, when you ran

you ran

before a pedestrian like this

you became exhausted, if you run

before horses—

all the more so

will you become exhausted!

And if, when you ran

you ran

three mil like this

you became exhausted, if you run

three parasangs,

which is a far greater distance—

all the more so

will you become exhausted!

And if, when you ran

you ran

on dry land like this

you became exhausted, if you run

among marshes of water—

all the more so

will you become exhausted!

You too,

Jeremiah,

if I paid that wicked man the reward for four steps

Nebuchadnezzar,

who ran after My honor, you wonder

why he deserves so much reward,

when I am paying Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the reward for having run

and served

before Me like horses, all the more

so

you should wonder at the great reward that I will pay them!

This is what is written: “For the prophets, my heart is broken within me; all my bones tremble; I am like a drunken man and like a man overcome by wine, because of the Lord and because of His holy words.” “For the prophets” refers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. “My heart is broken within me” means that I wondered at the reward given to them.

Proroki» — eto Avraham, Yitskhak i Yaakov. «Razbito moe serdtse vnutri menia» oznachaet: ia udivlialsia ikh nagrade. ]Tak obiasniaet Rashi. Smotri Maharshu, kotoryi obiasniaet eto po-drugomu. Smotri takzhe Iyun Yaakov.

These four steps,

mentioned above, that Nebuchadnezzar ran in honor of the Omnipresent—

what were they?

As it is written: “At that time Merodach-baladan, son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters, etc.,

to Hezekiah, because he had heard that Hezekiah had been ill.”

And one should wonder:

because Hezekiah had been ill and recovered

—and was healed, as is recounted there—

Merodach sent him

a letter

and a gift?!

Rather, as it is stated in Chronicles, Merodach’s messengers came

“to inquire about the wonder that had occurred in the land,”

as follows.

For Rabbi Yohanan said: On the day on which

the king

Ahaz

the wicked one died, the day lasted

only two hours

instead of the usual length,

it was,

so that there would not be time to eulogize him and bury him properly.

And when Hezekiah became ill and recovered

—and was healed—

the Holy One, blessed be He, restored those ten hours to him

—the Holy One, blessed be He, restored those ten missing hours to him— and that day on which he recovered was lengthened to twenty-two hours.

And this is what happened:

Hezekiah became ill, and the prophet Isaiah came to him and told him that he would die from this illness.

Hezekiah wept and prayed to the Lord that He heal him. The Lord heard his prayer and informed him that he would recover, that on the third day he would already come to the House of the Lord, and that fifteen years would be added to his life.

Hezekiah asked Isaiah for a sign and wonder that this would indeed happen.

Isaiah told him that he could give him a sign by having the shadow of the sundial—which was then at the point where the day begins to grow dark—remain in its place for ten hours. Alternatively, the shadow could return ten degrees backward and stand where it had stood in the morning.

Hezekiah told him that if the shadow remained in its place and did not move backward, this would not be such a great wonder, as it would not be particularly noticeable. Rather, let the shadow move backward ten degrees.

And so it happened,

as it is written: “Behold, I will turn back the shadow of the steps, which has gone down on the steps of Ahaz with the sun, backward ten steps. And the sun returned ten steps on the steps by which it had gone down.”

This is as stated above: Those ten hours by which the sun had suddenly descended on the steps on the day Ahaz died would now return, and the shadow would ascend ten steps backward.

King Merodach was accustomed to eat at the third hour of the day and sleep until the ninth hour. On the day that the sun’s course was turned back for Hezekiah, Merodach awoke at the ninth hour, as he always did, and found that it was morning, for the sun had returned backward.

He said to

his servants:

What is this,

have you let me sleep from yesterday morning until the following morning?! And he wanted to kill them for this.

They said to him: It is not so.

It is indeed now the ninth hour. Rather, through a miracle the sun returned backward, and morning came again.

And this was because

Hezekiah was ill—

and recovered

—Hezekiah became ill and was healed—and the Holy One, blessed be He, performed this miracle and wonder for him, lengthening the day.

He said: Is there a man as great as this

—is there such a great man—

and I should not send him greetings

—and I need not inquire after his welfare?!

Immediately he ordered that a letter of greeting be written and sent to Hezekiah.

They wrote to him

to Hezekiah as follows:

“Greetings to King Hezekiah; peace to the city of Jerusalem

—peace to the city of Jerusalem—

peace to the great deity.”

Nebuchadnezzar—

he was Baladan’s scribe

—he was Baladan’s scribe. At

that time,

when they wrote the letter to Hezekiah,

he was not there

—he was not present.

When he arrived

—when Nebuchadnezzar returned from his journey and heard that they had written a letter to Hezekiah—

he said to them: How did you write it

—how, and in what wording, did you write it?

They said to him: This is what we wrote

—we wrote such and such, as mentioned above.

Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and

said to them: You called

the deity of Hezekiah

“the great deity,” and you wrote to him only at the end

—and mentioned him only at the end?! They said to him: How else could we write it?

He said

to them:

Rather, write it this way,

in the following order:

“Peace to the great God, peace to the city of Jerusalem, peace to King Hezekiah.”

They said to him: The reader of the letter

should be its messenger

[This is a proverb: The reader of the letter should be the messenger.] That is, since you are the one who conceived this idea, you should go and carry it out.

He ran after him [

Nebuchadnezzar ran after the messenger who had taken the letter to Hezekiah, in order to give him another letter, with the corrected wording] .

When he ran

[when he was running]

four

steps, Gabriel came—

and stopped him

[The angel Gabriel came and stopped him, so that he would not continue running].

Rabbi Yohanan said: Had it not been

[had it not been that]

that Gabriel came and stopped him—

there would have been no remedy for Israel’s enemies.

For then his reward would have been far greater, and he would have been granted permission to destroy Israel.

What is the meaning of “

Merodach

Baladan son of Baladan,”

why was Merodach also called by his father’s name, Baladan?

They said:

At first,

Baladan

was king, and his face changed and became like that of a dog

[and the appearance of his face changed, becoming like that of a dog ].

His son sat upon the throne

[his son, Merodach, sat upon the throne].

When he would write

[when Merodach would write a letter],

he would write his name and his father’s name

[he would write his own name and his father’s name]

“Baladan the king,”

so that his father would be honored . For had he written only “Merodach son of Baladan,” that would not have honored his father, since everyone writes his own name and his father’s name. Therefore, he wrote “Merodach Baladan son of Baladan,” in order to honor his father.

This is what is written

in the Book of Malachi:

“A son honors his father, and a servant his master.”

“A son honors his father”—

this is what we said,

that Merodach honored his father Baladan.

“And a servant his master”—

what does this refer to? Who was the servant who honored his master?

As it is written: “And in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month—which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, chief of the executioners, came and stood before the king of Babylon in Jerusalem, and he burned the House of Hashem and the king’s palace.”

Thus, Nebuzaradan stood before King Nebuchadnezzar in Jerusalem.