Shabbat 56b — the Talmud in English

“For your servant said: I will saddle the donkey for myself, and I will ride upon it, and I will go with the king, for I am lame,” ![](pamud.bmp "

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your servant.”

For because I am lame, I could not go on foot. And while I was saddling my donkey, Ziba went alone to the king. And I was unable to go alone.

And Mephibosheth continued and said:

“And he slandered your servant to my lord the king, while my lord the king is like an angel of God; and do what is good in your eyes.”

For Ziba informed against me before you, that I rebel against the king. And because of this you gave him my inheritance. And you, the king, are like an angel of God, to know what the truth is. Therefore do as is good in your eyes. For certainly you will not turn away from the truth.

“And the king said to him: Why should you speak your words further,

for already

I have said

that

you and Ziba shall divide the field”

For I have already given him your field, and I cannot retract completely. Therefore, divide the field between yourselves.

“And Mephibosheth said to the king: Let him take even everything, after my lord the king has come in peace to his house”!

He said to him

Mephibosheth to David:

I said

all the time of your fleeing,

“When will you come in peace,”

while

you do this to me

and confiscate my property?

“I have no grievance against you, but against the one who brought you in peace!”

The plain meaning of the verse is that I rejoice over the fact that the king has returned in peace more than over my inheritance.

And this is what is written

about Mephibosheth,

“the son of Jonathan, Marib-Baal.”

But was “Marib-Baal” his name?

Was not his name Mephibosheth? Rather, because he quarreled with his Master,

with the Holy One, blessed is He,

a heavenly voice went forth and said: “Let him go forth, son of one who goes forth!”

[A “son who goes forth” means a quarrelsome son of a quarrelsome one.

And the Gemara explains:

“Let him go forth”

they called Mephibosheth this, because

this is what we said,

that he bore a grievance toward Heaven above over the fact that David returned in peace. And

“son of one who goes forth,”

because he was the grandson of Saul,

as it is written

about him,

“And Saul came to the city of Amalek and quarreled in the valley.”

Rabbi Mani said:

What is “and he quarreled in the valley”? He quarreled with Samuel

over the matter of the valley.

For when Samuel commanded him to strike Amalek, Saul derived a kal va-chomer from the heifer whose neck is broken in the valley. And he said: If concerning one life that was killed, the Torah said, “Bring a heifer whose neck is broken in the valley”—all these lives of Amalek, all the more so should one have pity on them. And if the adults of Amalek sinned, what did the children sin?

Rav Judah said in the name of Rav: At the time that David said to Mephibosheth, “You and Ziba shall divide the field,” a heavenly voice went forth and said to him: “Rehoboam and Jeroboam shall divide the kingdom!”

Just as you unjustly took half of Mephibosheth’s field and gave it to Ziba his servant, so shall the kingdom be torn from your descendants and divided between Rehoboam son of Solomon son of David and Jeroboam son of Nebat.

Rav Judah said in the name of Rav: Had David not accepted slander

from Ziba concerning Mephibosheth and confiscated his inheritance,

the kingdom of David would not have been divided, Israel would not have worshipped idolatry, and we would not have been exiled from our land.

For because the kingdom of the house of David was divided, Jeroboam, king of Israel, set up golden calves in Bethel and in Dan, so that the Children of Israel would worship them and would not go up to Jerusalem, which was the kingdom of Rehoboam. And the idolatry that they worshipped caused us to be exiled from our land.

Rav Samuel bar Nahmani said in the name of Rabbi Jonathan: Anyone who says, “Solomon sinned

with idolatry,”

is only mistaken.

As it is stated

concerning Solomon,

“And his heart was not whole with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.”

And it implies:

It was only not as the heart of David his father.

But

he also did not sin.

And we raise an objection:

Rather, how do I uphold

how are we to interpret the beginning of the verse,

“And it came to pass at the time of Solomon’s old age, his wives turned his heart

to go after other gods”? And we answer:

That—

as

as Rabbi Nathan interpreted it—

Rabbi Nathan.

For Rabbi Nathan raises a contradiction

between the verses:

It is written, “And it came to pass at the time of Solomon’s old age, his wives turned his heart

to go after other gods.” Thus Solomon sinned.

And it is written

later in the verses, “And his heart was not whole with the Lord his God,

as was the heart of David his father,”

and it implies:

It was only not as the heart of David his father; but he also did not sin.

And Rabbi Nathan answered: In truth, he did not sin.

And this is what the verse says

:

“And it came to pass at the time of Solomon’s old age, his wives turned his heart to go after other gods,”

but he did not

listen to their counsel, and he did not

go

and worship.

And we ask:

And it is written, “Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab

on the mountain that is before Jerusalem, and for Milcom, the abomination of the children of Ammon.” Thus he built high places for idolatry. And how did you say that he did not sin?

And we answer: The intention of the verse is:

that he sought

then, Solomon,

to build

these high places,

but he did not build them.

And we ask:

But from now

will you also interpret the verse

“Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord”

as

“he sought to build it but did not build it”?

But certainly this is not so.

Rather, he built

it literally. And

here too,

concerning Solomon, it should be interpreted

that he built

actual high places. And how did you say that he did not sin?

And we answer:

Rather, as it was taught in a beraita: Rabbi Yose says:

It is written concerning Josiah, king of Judah:

“And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right of the Mount of Destruction,

which Solomon, king of Israel, had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians

and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, the king defiled.”

Is it possible that Asa came

and ruled over Judah

but did not remove them

for these idolatries, and

Jehoshaphat

ruled

but did not remove them,

and they remained existing

until Josiah came and removed them?

But all the idolatries in the Land of Israel, Asa and Jehoshaphat

had already

removed.

Rather, he compares the earlier ones

Solomon

to the later ones,

Josiah:

Just as the later ones

did not perform the removal attributed to them, for it was not Josiah who removed them but his ancestors,

and

nevertheless, because Josiah removed other idolatries that had been made after the death of Asa and Jehoshaphat,

he attributed to them

the removal, through Josiah, and it was considered

for praise

of him.

The earlier ones as well,

Solomon

did not make

Chemosh, Ashtoreth, and Milcom; rather, his wives did.

And he attributed to them,

to Solomon, the verse the making of these things,

for disgrace!

And the reason for this will be explained shortly.

And we ask:

And it is written, “And Solomon did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord,”

and did not fully follow the Lord as David his father did.” And how did you say that he did not sin?

And we answer:

Rather, because he should have protested against his wives

who practiced idolatry

but did not protest

against them,

the verse considers it for him as though he sinned

himself.

Rabbi Judah said in the name of Samuel: It would have been better for that righteous man,

Solomon,

to be a servant to another,

to idolatry, such as chopping wood and drawing water for payment for idolatry,

than for “And he did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord” to be written concerning him.

Rav Judah said in the name of Samuel: When Solomon married Pharaoh’s daughter,

she

brought him a thousand kinds of song, and said to him: This is how they perform

and sing

to

before

such-and-such an idolatry, and this is how they perform for

before

such-and-such an idolatry.

And he did not protest against her

Solomon.

Rav Judah said in the name of Samuel: When

Solomon married Pharaoh’s daughter, there descended

the angel

Gabriel and thrust a reed into the sea, and a sandbank rose upon it

[around the reed],

and adhered to it,

and sand and mud continued to accumulate around it until it became dry land.

And upon it was built

in the end

a great city of Rome.

In a matnita it was taught: On the very day that Jeroboam son of Nebat introduced two golden calves, one in Bethel and one in Dan, one hut was built

on that sandbank. And from then onward houses were added upon houses

. And this is the Italy of Greece.

And Italy is a city in the country of Greece. And when Rome conquered the kingdom of Greece, Italy too became theirs.

Rav Samuel bar Nahmani said in the name of Rabbi Jonathan: Anyone who says that Josiah sinned is only mistaken.

And although it was said concerning him, “who returned to the Lord,” implying that at first he sinned, this is not so.

For

indeed

it is stated, “And he did what was upright in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father

and did not turn right or left.”

Rather, how do I uphold

the verse that was said concerning him,

“And like him there was no king before him, who returned

to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his wealth, according to all the Torah of Moses, and after him none arose like him,” which implies that he sinned and afterward returned in repentance?—

For

Josiah began to reign when he was eight years old. And

every judge

[judgment]

who judged from the age of eight

years

until eighteen

years,

returned it to them

the money that the litigants had lost through him in judgment.

For when Josiah was eighteen years old, Hilkiah the high priest found the Torah scroll in the Temple. He gave it to Shaphan the scribe, who read it before Josiah. Then Josiah examined and scrutinized the Torah and its laws, both written and oral. And he understood that perhaps he had erred in the judgments that he had adjudicated earlier.

Lest you say, he took from this one

who had been vindicated in judgment

and gave to that one

who had lost in judgment? It is not so. For

the verse says: “Who returned to the Lord

with all his wealth.”

And “wealth” means money [as we expound, “with all your wealth,” with all your money]. From here,

“Wealth” means money [as we expound, “with all your wealth”—with all your money]. From here

that he gave them

money

from his own.

And Rabbi Jonathan disagrees

Rabbi Jonathan

with Rav.

For Rav said: You have no one greater among penitents than Josiah in his generation, and

greater than a penitent

in our generation.

And we ask:

And who

was that penitent in Rav’s generation?

And we answer:

Abba,

who was

the father of Rav Jeremiah bar Abba.

And some say, Aha,

who was

Abba’s brother,

who was

the father of Rav Jeremiah bar Abba.

For the master said: Rabbi Abba and Aha were brothers.

Rav Yosef said: And furthermore,

a penitent

one

exists

in our generation,

than whom there is no greater penitent.

And who is he?—

Uqban bar Nehemiah,

who was

the head of the exile and the academy.

And this is “Natan of the sparks,”

for sparks of fire were seen in him, through the angel who extended his hand to him and accepted his repentance.

Rav Yosef said: I was sitting in

a lecture in

the public exposition. And I was

[I was]

dozing. And I saw in a dream that

the angel

extended his hands and accepted it

the repentance of Uqban bar Nehemiah!

We shall return to you, chapter “With What May an Animal Go Out?”