Sotah 10b — the Talmud in English

Rather, “and he caused to proclaim” —

to others,

This teaches: Abraham our father caused the name of the Holy One, blessed is He, to be proclaimed by the mouth of every passerby, —

for he taught people to call in the name of the Lord, God of the world.

How so?

After

Abraham our father’s guests

ate and drank

from his,

they stood to bless

Abraham,

He said to them: “Did you eat from mine? You ate from the portion of the God of the world!”

Immediately

they acknowledged, praised, and blessed Him Who spoke and the world came into being,

and through this he caused everyone to acknowledge Him.

The Gemara returns to the matter of Tamar:

It is written:

“And Judah saw her and considered her to be a prostitute, because she had covered her face” (Genesis 38:15).

And we object:

Because she had covered her face, he considered her a prostitute?

But the way of prostitutes is to reveal the face and not to cover it!

And we answer:

Rabbi Elazar said:

This is how the verse is to be explained: because

she had covered her face in her father-in-law’s house —

Judah had not seen her throughout all the days that she grew up in his house, for she was modest; therefore, when she revealed her face, he did not recognize her.

For Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said in the name of Rabbi Yonatan: Every bride

who is modest in her father-in-law’s house —

merits that kings and prophets emerge from her.

From where do we know this

— do we learn this?

From Tamar —

from whom both kings and prophets emerged, for we find that

prophets emerged from her, as it is written:

“The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz” (Isaiah 1:1),

and Amoz was among Tamar’s descendants, as will be explained below.

And we find that

kings emerged from her —

from David,

who was from the tribe of Judah and among Tamar’s descendants.

And

from where do we know that Amoz, the father of Isaiah the prophet, was of the house of David?

Rabbi Levi said: This matter is a tradition in our hands from our forefathers: Amoz,

the father of Isaiah the prophet,

and Amaziah,

the king of Judah, from the seed of David,

were brothers,

so Isaiah the prophet too was of the house of David and among Tamar’s descendants.

It is said concerning Tamar:

“She

was brought out (to be burned), and she sent to her father-in-law, saying, ‘To the man to whom these belong I am pregnant,’ and she said, ‘Recognize, please, to whom belong the signet, the cords, and this staff’” (Genesis 38:25).

(to be burned), and she sent word to her father-in-law, saying: ‘By the man to whom these belong I am pregnant.’ And she said: ‘Please identify whose are this signet, these cords, and this staff.’”

And we object:

“She is brought out” should have been written —

which is an expression of being brought out against her will, and not “she was brought out,” which is an expression of finding.

Rabbi Elazar said:

It was written in the language of finding in order to hint that the identifying objects were found,

for

after her identifying objects were found —

the signet, the cords, and the staff, which proved that she had conceived from Judah —

there came

an angel,

Samael,

who is the ministering angel of Edom,

and distanced them,

so that she would be burned and David would not emerge from her, who would strike Edom in the Valley of Salt. And

there came

the angel

Gabriel and brought them near.

And

this is what is written:

“For the leader, concerning the mute dove, far away, of David, a precious inscription” (Psalms 56:1).

This refers to Tamar, whose identifying objects had become distant, because she was fit and destined for David to emerge from her.

For

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: From the moment her identifying objects became distant, she became like a mute dove,

and therefore she is called in the verse “a mute dove.”

And the reason that her identifying objects became distant through the ministering angel of Edom is because of

“of David, a precious inscription” —

for

he was destined to

emerge from her, David, who was poor —

humble,

and wholehearted —

wholehearted in his ways

toward all.

Alternatively:

He was called

“a precious inscription” —

for his mark,

the place of circumcision, which is fit for a mark,

was complete,

whole and finished,

for he was born circumcised,

and it was not necessary to circumcise him.

Alternatively: “a precious inscription” —

for his mark, his humility, was complete all his days,

for

just as in his youth

before he became king

he humbled himself before one who was greater than he in order to learn Torah, so

also

in his greatness

after he became king, he conducted himself this way.

Further in the verse concerning Tamar, it is stated:

“And she sent to her father-in-law, saying, ‘To the man to whom these belong I am pregnant.’”

And we object:

Let her say it explicitly,

that she should tell the messenger to say to him explicitly that she was pregnant by him, and these were his identifying objects.

Rav Zutra bar Tovia said in the name of Rav—and some say Rav Hana bar Bizna said in the name of Rabbi Shimon the Pious—and some say Rabbi Yoḥanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai:

It is preferable

to him

for a person to cast himself into a fiery furnace rather than whiten the face of his fellow in public.

From where do we know this

do we learn this? —

From Tamar,

for it was preferable for her to be burned rather than to whiten Judah’s face. Therefore, she sent to him that if he would acknowledge and reveal the matter himself, it would be preferable; and if not, she would be burned and would not reveal the matter herself.

It is stated:

“Recognize, please” (there).

Rabbi Hama, son of Rabbi Hanina, said:

Since

through “Recognize” Judah informed

his

father

of a matter that distressed him, therefore

through “Recognize” he was informed.

And we explain:

Through “Recognize” he informed —

for he said to his father concerning Joseph’s tunic:

“Recognize, please, is this your son’s tunic?”

(Genesis 37:32),

therefore

through “Recognize” he was informed —

“Recognize, please, to whom belong

the signet, the cords, and the staff.”

It is stated: “Recognize

please” —

“please” is only an expression of supplication,

for

she said to him: “I beg you, recognize the face of your Creator and do not hide your eyes from me.”

It is stated:

“And Judah recognized and said, ‘She is more righteous than I’” (there, 26),

for he acknowledged publicly.

This is what Rav Hanin bar Bizna said in the name of Rabbi Shimon the Pious:

Joseph, who sanctified the name of Heaven in private,

when he withstood the temptation of Potiphar’s wife

merited that one letter from the name of the Holy One, blessed is He, was added to his name,

as it is written:

“He appointed it as a testimony in Joseph when He went forth” (Psalms 81:6),

indicating that the letter heh from the name of the Holy One, blessed is He, was added to his name.

Judah, who sanctified the name of Heaven in public,

for he acknowledged before many people, —

merited that he was called entirely by the name of the Holy One, blessed is He,

for all the letters yod, heh, vav, heh are included within the name Judah.

When he acknowledged

Judah

and said, “She is more righteous than I,” a heavenly voice went forth and said:

You saved

Tamar

and her two sons

with whom she was pregnant,

from the fire; by your life, I shall save by your merit three of your sons from the fire.

Who are they

— who are they?

Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

Judah said:

“And he said

‘She is more righteous than I.’”

And we object:

From where did he know

that Tamar was truly pregnant by him? Perhaps others had come to her, and she had become pregnant from them.

And we answer: A heavenly voice said that

a heavenly voice went forth

from Heaven

and said: “Concealed things have emerged from Me”

— secret matters, the king’s decree—which had been decreed before Me, that kings would emerge from Tamar, and they could emerge only from Judah.

It is subsequently said concerning Judah and Tamar:

“And he did not continue to know her”

(there).

Shmuel the Elder

— the elder —

the father-in-law

— his father-in-law —

of Rav

Shmuel

bar Ami, in the name of Rav Shmuel bar Ami, said: Once he knew her —

that he knew her to be righteous and that she had intended for the sake of Heaven,

he did not cease from her again,

and he learns this from “he did not continue”

for

here it is written: “And he did not continue to know her,”

and there it is written:

at the giving of the Torah,

“a great voice and it did not continue”

(Deuteronomy 5:19),

and we translate: “and it did not cease.”

We learned in the Mishna:

Absalom gloried in his hair, and he was punished through his hair.

The Sages taught

in a beraita:

Absalom, because of

his

hair, rebelled

and sinned,

for adjacent to the account of the rebellion in which he rebelled against his father, Scripture recounted what caused this for him: he was handsome, and in all Israel there was no one like him, and he became proud of his beauty and his hair, and thought that among the sons of David no one was as fit for kingship as he, and he rebelled,

as it is stated: “And like Absalom there was no man beautiful

in all Israel

and so on; and when he shaved his head, it came to pass at the end of days, from time to time, when he shaved it, for it was heavy upon him

— he shaved once every twelve months, since he was a lifelong nazirite —

“and he shaved it and weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels by the king’s weight”

(II Samuel 14:25

–26),

And what is the king’s weight?

The tanna taught: A stone with which the people of Tiberias and the people of Sepphoris weigh.

And because his hair was exceedingly beautiful and he became proud of it,

therefore he was hanged by his hair,

as it is stated:

“And Absalom happened to meet the servants of David, and Absalom was riding upon the mule, and the mule came beneath the thick branches of the great terebinth, and his head caught fast in the terebinth, and he was placed between heaven and earth, and the mule beneath him passed on.”

He weighed a sword; he wanted to cut it

— Absalom took a sword and wanted to cut the hair in order to free himself.

The tanna of the school of Rabbi Ishmael taught: At that moment, the underworld split open beneath him,

and he was afraid of falling into it, and he did not cut his hair.

It is stated there:

“And the king trembled

–

and was frightened –

the king

— David —

and went up to the upper chamber

— the roof of —

the gate

— of the city —

and wept, and thus he said as he went: ‘My son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, Absalom, my son, my son,’ and so on. And the king covered his face and cried out with a great voice: ‘My son Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son.’

And we inquire about this:

These eight

— those eight — times that King David said

“my son”—why?

And we explain:

seven

times he prayed for him, and through this he brought about

that he raised him [

that he brought him up]

from the seven chambers of Gehinnom

in which he was fit to be,

and the other one [

and the eighth “son”]:

some say: that he brought his head close to his body,

for his head had been cast far from his body, and he brought it close.

And some say: that he brought him to the World to Come,

for he brought him to the life of the World to Come.

It is stated there:

“And Absalom took

the counsel]

and set up for himself during his lifetime

a pillar that was in the King’s Valley (to be for him as a memorial after his death), for he said: ‘I have no son, for the remembrance of my name’; and he named the pillar after his own name, and he called it the hand of Absalom, to this day”

And we raise it against this:

what

is the meaning of the expression

“took”?

Reish Lakish said: That he took a bad acquisition for himself,

and because he took a bad acquisition, he was punished,

Later there it is stated:

“the pillar that was in the King’s Valley, and so forth.”

Rabbi Hanina bar Pappa said:

“‘In the King’s Valley’” means that

with deep counsel

of

the Almighty, who is

the King of the world,

Absalom did this; for the Almighty had decreed this matter upon David because of the incident involving Bathsheba.