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_Yoma_, fol. 39, col. 1.

The Rabbis have taught:--Forty years before the destruction of the
Temple the lot did not fall on the right, and the crimson band did not
turn white; the light in the west did not burn, and the gates of the
Temple opened of themselves, so that Rabbi Yochanan ben Zacchai rebuked
them, and said, "O Temple! Temple! why art thou dismayed? I know thy end
will be that thou shalt be destroyed, for Zachariah the son of Iddo has
already predicted respecting thee (Zech. xi. i), 'Open thy doors, O
Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.'"

Ibid., fol. 39, col. 2.

During the forty years that Israel were in the wilderness there was not
a midnight in which the north wind did not blow.

_Yevamoth_, fol. 71, col. 1.

Rabbi Zadok fasted forty years that Jerusalem might not be destroyed,
and so emaciated was he, that when he ate anything it might be seen
going down his throat.

_Gittin_, fol. 56, col. 1.

Forty days before the formation of a child a Bath Kol proclaims, "The
daughter of so-and-so shall marry the son of so-and-so; the premises of
so-and-so shall be the property of so-and-so."

_Soteh_, fol. 2, col. 1.

Rav Hunna and Rav Chasda were so angry with one another that they did
not meet for forty years. After that Rav Chasda fasted forty days for
having annoyed Rav Hunna, and Rav Hunna forty days for having suspected
Rav Chasda.

_Bava Metzia_, fol. 33, col. 1.

A female who marries at forty will never have any children.

He who eats black cummin the weight of a denarius will have his heart
torn out; so also will he who eats forty eggs or forty nuts, or a
quarter of honey.

_Tract Calah._

He that cooks in milk the nerve Nashe on a yearly festival, and then
eats it, receives five times forty stripes save one, etc.

_Baitza_, fol. 12, col. 1.

He who passes forty consecutive days without suffering some affliction
has received his good reward in his lifetime (_cf._ Luke xvi. 25).

_Erachin_, fol. 16, col. 2.

If a bath contain forty measures of water and some mud, people may,
according to Rabbi Elazar, immerse themselves in the water of it, but
not in the mud; while Rabbi Yehoshua says they may do so in both.

_Mikvaoth_, chap. ii. 10.

Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav:--The Divine name, which consists of
forty-two letters, is revealed only to him who is prudent and meek, who
has reached the meridian of life, is not prone to wrath, not given to
drink, and not revengeful. He that knows that name, and acts
circumspectly in regard to it, and retains it sacredly, is beloved in
heaven and esteemed on earth; He inspires men with reverence, and is
heir both to the world that now is and that which is to come.

_Kiddushin_, fol. 71, col. 1.

A man should always devote himself to the study of the law and to the
practice of good deeds, even if he does not do so for their own sake, as
self-satisfied performance may follow in due course. Thus, in recompense
for the forty-two sacrifices he offered, Balak was accounted worthy to
become the ancestor of Ruth. Rav Yossi bar Hunna has said, Ruth was the
daughter of Eglon, the grandson of Balak, king of Moab.

_Sanhedrin_, fol. 105, col. 2.

These are the forty-five righteous men for whose sake the world is
preserved.

_Chullin_, fol. 92, col. 1.

Rabbi Meir had a disciple named Sumchus, who in every case assigned
forty-eight reasons why one thing should be called clean and why another
should be called unclean, though Scripture declared the contrary. (A
striking illustration of Rabbinical ingenuity!)

_Eiruvin_, fol. 13, col. 2.

Forty-eight prophets and seven prophetesses prophesied unto Israel, and
they have neither diminished nor added to that which is written in the
law, except the reading of the Book of Esther.

_Megillah_, fol. 14, col. 1.

The Rabbis teach that in future (in the days of the Messiah) all
Scripture will be abolished except the Book of Esther, also all
festivals except the feast of Purim. (See _Menorath Hamaor_,
fol. 135, col. 1.)

By forty-eight things the law is acquired. These are study, attention,
careful conversation, mental discernment, solicitude, reverential fear,
meekness, geniality of soul, purity, attention to the wise, mutual
discussion, debating, sedateness, learning in the Scripture and the
Mishna, not dabbling in commerce, self-denial, moderation in sleep,
aversion to gossip, etc., etc.

_Avoth_, chap. 6.

When God gave the law to Moses, He assigned forty-nine reasons in every
case for pronouncing one thing unclean and as many for pronouncing other
things clean.

_Sophrim_, chap. 16, mish. 6.

He that has fifty zouzim, and trades therewith, may not glean what is
left in the corner of the field (Lev. xix. 9). He that takes it, and has
no right to it, will come to want before the day of his departure. And
if one who is entitled to it leaves it to others more needy, before he
dies he will not only be able to support himself, but be a stay to
others.

_Peah_, chap. 8, mish. 9.

Fifty measures of understanding were created in the world, and all
except one were given to Moses; as it is said (Ps. viii. 5), "Thou hast
made him a little lower than the angels."

_Rosh Hashanah_, fol. 21, col, 2.

Poverty in a house is harder to bear than fifty plagues.

_Bava Bathra_, fol 116, col. 1.

The above saying is based on Job xix. 21, compared with Exod.
viii. 19.

For fifty-two years no man traveled through the land of Judea.

_Yoma_. fol. 54, col. 1.

Black cummin is one of the sixty deadly drugs.

_Berachoth_, fol. 40, col. 1.

Ulla and Rav Chasda were once traveling together, when they came up to
the gate of the house of Rav Chena bar Chenelai. At sight of it Rav
Chasda stooped and sighed. "Why sighest thou?" asked Ulla, "seeing, as
Rav says, sighing breaks the body in halves; for it is said (Ezek. xxi.
6), 'sigh, therefore, O son of man, with the breaking of thy loins;' and
Rabbi Yochanan says a sigh breaks up the whole constitution; for it is
said (Ezek. xxi. 7), 'And it shall be when they say unto thee, Wherefore
sighest thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tidings because it cometh,
and the whole heart shall melt,'" etc. To this Rav Chasda replied, "How
can I help sighing over this house, where sixty bakers used to be
employed during the day, and sixty during the night, to make bread for
the poor and needy; and Rav Chena had his hand always at his purse, for
he thought the slightest hesitation might cause a poor but respectable
man to blush; and besides he kept four doors open, one to each quarter
of the heavens, so that all might enter and be satisfied? Over and above
this, in time of famine he scattered wheat and barley abroad, so that
they who were ashamed to gather by day might do so by night; but now
this house has fallen into ruin, and ought I not to sigh?"

Ibid., fol. 58, col. 2.

Egypt is a sixtieth of Ethiopia, Ethiopia a sixtieth of the world, the
world is a sixtieth part of the garden of Eden, the garden itself is but
a sixtieth of Eden, and Eden a sixtieth of Gehenna. Hence the world in
proportion to Gehenna is but as the lid to a caldron.

_P'sachim_, fol. 94, col. 1.

They led forth Metatron and struck him sixty bastinadoes with a cudgel
of fire.

_Chaggigah_, fol. 15, col. 1.

In the context of the foregoing quotation occurs an anecdote of
Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah which is too racy to let pass, and too
characteristic to need note or comment. One day Elisha ben
Abuyah was privileged to pry into Paradise, where he saw the
recording angel Metatron on a seat registering the merits of the
holy of Israel. Struck with astonishment at the sight, he
exclaimed, "Is it not laid down that there is no sitting in
heaven, no shortsightedness or fatigue?" Then Metatron, thus
discovered, was ordered out and flogged with sixty lashes from a
fiery scourge. Smarting with pain, the angel asked and obtained
leave to cancel the merits of the prying Rabbi. One day--it
chanced to be on Yom Kippur and Sabbath--as Elisha was riding
along by the wall where the Holy of Holies once stood, he heard
a Bath Kol proclaiming, "Return, ye backsliding children, but
Acher abide thou in thy sin" (Acher was the Rabbi's nickname). A
faithful disciple of his hearing this, and bent on reclaiming
and reforming him, invited him to go and hear the lads of a
school close by repeat their lessons. The Rabbi went, and from
that to another and another, until he had gone the round of a
dozen seminaries, in the last of which he called up a lad to
repeat a verse who had an impediment in his speech. The verse
happened to be Ps. l. 16, "But unto the wicked, God saith, Why
dost thou declare my law?" Acher fancied the boy said, and to
Elisha (his own name), instead of and to Rasha, that is, the
wicked. This roused the Rabbi into such fury of passion, that he
sprang to his feet, exclaiming, "If I only had a knife at hand I
would cut this boy into a dozen pieces, and send a piece to each
school I have visited!"

A woman of sixty runs after music like a girl of six.

_Moed Katon_, fol. 9, col. 2.

Rabba, who only studied the law, lived forty years; Abaii, who both
studied the law and exercised benevolence, lived sixty.

_Rosh Hashanah_, fol. 18, col. 1.

The manna which came down upon Israel was sixty ells deep.

_Yoma_, fol. 76, col. 1.

It is not right for a man to sleep in the daytime any longer than a
horse sleeps. And how long is the sleep of a horse? Sixty respirations.

_Succah_, fol. 26, col. 2.

Abaii says, "When I left Rabbah, I was not at all hungry; but when I
arrived at Meree, they served up before me sixty dishes, with as many
sorts of viands, and I ate half of each, but as for hotch-potch, which
the last dish contained, I ate up all of it, and would fain have eaten
up the dish too." Abaii said, "This illustrates the proverb, current
among the people, 'The poor man is hungry, and does not know when he has
eaten enough; or, there is always room for a tit-bit.'"

_Meggillah_, fol. 7, col. 2.

There are sixty kinds of wine; the best of all is the red aromatic wine,
and bad white wine is the worst.

_Gittin_, fol. 70, col. 1.

Samson's shoulders were sixty ells broad.

_Soteh_, fol. 10, col. 1.

Ebal and Gerizim were sixty miles from Jordan.

Ibid., fol. 36, col. 1.

One who makes a good breakfast can outstrip sixty runners in a race (who
have not).

_Bava Kama_, fol. 92, col. 2.

A (hungry) person who looks on while another eats, experiences sixty
unpleasant sensations in his teeth.

Ibid.

His wife made him daily sixty sorts of dainties, and these restored him
again.

_Bava Metzia_, fol. 84, col. 2.

Rabbi Blazar, the son of Rabbi Shimon, once vindictively caused
a man to be put to death, merely because he had spoken of him as
Vinegar the son of Wine, a round-about way of reproaching him
that he was the bad son of a good father, though it turned out
afterward that the condemned man deserved death for a crime that
he was not known to be guilty of at the time of his execution;
yet the mind of the Rabbi was ill at ease, and he voluntarily
did penance by subjecting himself in a peculiar fashion to great
bodily suffering. Sixty woolen cloths were regularly spread
under him every night, and these were found soaked in the
morning with his profuse perspiration. The result of this was
greater and greater bodily prostration, which his wife strove,
as related above, day after day to repair, detaining him from
college, lest the debates there should prove too much for his
weakened frame. When his wife found that he persisted in
courting these sufferings, and that her tender care, as well as
her own patrimony, were being lavished on him in vain, she tired
of her assiduity, and left him to his fate. And now, waited on
by some sailors, who believed they owed to him deliverance from
a watery grave, he was free to do as he liked. One day, being
ministered to by them after a night's perspiration of the kind
referred to, he went straight to college, and there decided
sixty doubtful cases against the unanimous dissent of the
assembly. Providential circumstances, which happened afterward,
both proved that he was right in his judgment and that his wife
was wrong in suffering her fondness for him to stand in the way
of the performance of his public duties.

Elijah frequently attended the Rabbi's seat of instruction, and once, on
the first of a month, he came in later than usual. Rabbi asked what had
kept him so late. Elijah answered, "I have to wake up Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob one after the other, to wash the hands of each, and to wait
until each has said his prayers and retired to rest again." "But," said
Rabbi, "why do they not all get up at the same time?" The answer was,
"Because if they prayed all at once, their united prayers would hurry on
the coming of the Messiah before the time appointed." Then said Rabbi,
"Are there any such praying people among us?" Elijah mentioned Rabbi
Cheyah and his sons. Then Rabbi announced a fast, and the Rabbi Cheyah
and his sons came to celebrate it. In the course of repeating the
Shemoneh Esreh [a prayer consisting of eighteen Collects, which is
repeated three times each day] they were about to say, "Thou restoreth
life to the dead" when the world was convulsed, and the question was
asked in heaven, "Who told them the secret?" So Elijah was bastinadoed
sixty strokes with a cudgel of fire. Then he came down like a fiery
bear, and dashing in among the people, scattered the congregation.

_Bava Metzia_, fol. 85, col. 2.

When love was strong, we could lie, as it were, on the edge of a sword;
but now, when love is diminished, a bed sixty ells wide is not broad
enough for us.

_Sanhedrin_, fol. 7, col. 1.

The pig bears in sixty days.

_Bechoroth_, fol. 8, col. 1.

Sixty iron mines are suspended in the sting of a gnat.

_Chullin_, fol. 58, col. 2.

An egg once dropped out of the nest of a bird called Bar-Yuchnei, which
deluged sixty cities and swept away three hundred cedars. The question
therefore arose, "Does the bird generally throw out its eggs?" Rav Ashi
replied, "No; that was a rotten one."

_Bechoroth_, fol. 57, col. 2.

Everybody knows why a bride enters the nuptial chamber, but against him
who sullies his lips by talking about it, the decree for good, though of
seventy years' standing, shall be reversed into a decree for evil. Rav
Chasda says, "Whosoever disgraces his mouth (by evil communication),
Gehenna shall be deepened for him; for it is said in Prov. xxii. 14, 'A
deep pit for the mouth of strange words (immoral talk).'" Rav Nachman
bar Yitzchak says, "The same punishment will be inflicted on him who
listens to it and is silent; for it is said (Prov. xxii. 14), 'And he
that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein.'"

_Shabbath_, fol. 33, col. 1.

(Jer. xxiii. 29), "Like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces," so
is every utterance which proceedeth from the mouth of God, divided
though it be into seventy languages.

Ibid., fol. 88, col. 2.

Rabbi Eliezer asked, "For whose benefit were those seventy bullocks
intended?" See Num. xxix. 12-36. For the seventy nations into which the
Gentile world is divided; and Rashi plainly asserts that the seventy
bullocks were intended to atone for them, that rain might descend all
over the world, for on the Feast of Tabernacles judgment is given
respecting rain, etc. Woe to the Gentile nations for their loss, and
they know not what they have lost! for as long as the Temple existed,
the altar made atonement for them; but now, who is to atone for them?

_Succah_, fol. 55, col. 2.

Choni, the Maagol, once saw in his travels an old man planting a
carob-tree, and he asked him when he thought the tree would bear fruit.
"After seventy years," was the reply. "What!" said Choni, "dost thou
expect to live seventy years and eat the fruit of thy labor?" "I did not
find the world desolate when I entered it," said the old man; "and as my
fathers planted for me before I was born, so I plant for those that will
come after me."

_Taanith_, fol. 23, col. 1.

Mordecai was one of those who sat in the hall of the Temple, and he knew
seventy languages.

_Megillah_, fol. 13, col. 2.

The Rabbis have taught:--During a prosperous year in Israel, a place
that is sown with a single measure of seed produces five myriad cors of
grain. In the tilled districts of Zoan, one measure of seed produces
seventy cors; for we are told that Rabbi Meir said he himself had
witnessed in the vale of Bethshean an instance of one measure of seed
producing seventy cors. And there is no better land anywhere than the
land of Egypt; for it is said, "As the garden of the Lord, like the land
of Egypt." And there is no better land in ail Egypt than Zoan, where
several kings have resided; for it is written (Isa. xxx. 4), "His
princes were in Zoan." In all Israel there was no more unsuitable soil
than Hebron, for it was a burying-place, and yet Hebron was seven times
more prolific than Zoan; for it is written (Num. xiii. 22), "Now Hebron
was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt." For it is said (Gen. x. 6),
"And the sons of Ham, Cush, Mizraim (that is, Egypt), Phut, and Canaan"
(that is, Israel). It must, therefore, mean that it was seven times more
prolific (the verb meaning both to build and to produce) than Zoan. This
is only in the unsuitable soil of the land of Israel, Hebron, but in the
suitable soil (the increase) is five hundred times. All this applies to
a year of average return, but in one of special prosperity, it is
written (Gen. xxvi. 12), "Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in
the same year an hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him." (The word
years, is conveniently overlooked in working out the argument.)

_Kethuboth_, fol. 112, col. 1.

The astrologers in Egypt said to Pharaoh, "What! shall a slave whose
master bought him for twenty pieces of silver rule over us?" Pharaoh
replied, "But I find him endowed with kingly qualities." "If that is the
case," they answered, "he must know seventy languages." Then came the
angel Gabriel, and taught him seventy languages.

_Soteh_, fol. 36, col. 2.

When the leviathan makes the deep boil, the sea does not recover its
calm for seventy years; for it is said (Job xli. 32), "One would think
the deep is to be hoary," and we cannot take the word "hoary" to imply a
term of less than seventy years.

_Bava Bathra_, fol. 75, col. 1.

Abba Chalepha Keruya once remarked to Rav Cheyah bar Abba, "The sum
total of Jacob's family thou findest reckoned at seventy, whereas the
numbers added up make only sixty-nine. How is that?" Rav Cheyah made
answer that the particle in verse 15, implies that Dinah must have been
one of twin-sisters. "But," objected the other, "the same particle
occurs also in connection with Benjamin, to say nothing of other
instances." "Alas!" said Rav Cheyah, "I am possessed of a secret worth
knowing, and thou art trying to worm it out of me." Then interposed Rav
Chama bar Chanena, "The number may be made up by reckoning Jochebed in,
for of her it is said (Num. xxvi. 59) 'that her mother bare her to Levi
in Egypt;' her birth took place in Egypt, though she was conceived on
the journey."

_Bava Bathra_, fol. 123, cols, 1, 2.

Rav Yehudah says in the name of Shemuel:--There is yet another festival
in Rome, which is observed only once in seventy years, and this is the
manner of its celebration. They take an able-bodied man, without
physical defect, and cause him to ride upon the back of a lame one. They
dress up the former in the garments of Adam (such as God made for him in
Paradise), and cover his face with the skin of the face of Rabbi
Ishmael, the high priest, and adorn his neck with a precious stone. They
illuminate the streets, and then lead the two men through the city, a
herald proclaiming before them, "The account of our Lord was false; it
is the brother of our Lord that is the deceiver! He that sees this
festival sees it, and he that does not see it now will never see it.
What advantage to the deceiver is his deception, and to the crafty his
craftiness?" The proclamation finishes up thus--"Woe to this one when
the other shall rise again!"

_Avodah Zarah_, fol. 11, col. 2.

The Targum Yarushalmi informs us that the Lord God wrought for
Adam and his wife robes of honor from the cast-off skin of the
serpent. We learn elsewhere that Nimrod came into possession of
Adam's coat through Ham, who stole it from Noah while in the
Ark. The glib tongue of tradition also tells how Esau slew
Nimrod and appropriated the garment, and wore it for luck when
hunting; but that on the day when he went to seek venison at the
request of his dying parent, in his hurry he forgot the
embroidered robe of Adam, and had bad luck in consequence. Then
Jacob borrowed the left-off garment, and kept it for himself.
The mask alluded to is accounted for thus:--The daughter of a
Roman emperor took a fancy to have the skin of Rabbi Ishmael's
face, and it accordingly, when he was dead, was taken off, and
so embalmed as to retain its features, expression, and
complexion, and the Jews say that it is still preserved among
the relics at Rome. The able-bodied man in this prophetic
mystery-play represents Esau, and the limping man is intended
for Jacob. Rome (or Esau) is uppermost in that ceremonial, but
the time is coming when Jacob will rise and invest himself in
the blessings he so craftily obtained the reversion of.

Rabbi Yochanan said:--None were elected to sit in the High Council of
the Sanhedrin except men of stature, of wisdom, of imposing appearance,
and of mature age; men who knew witchcraft and seventy languages, in
order that the High Council of the Sanhedrin should have no need of an
interpreter.

_Sanhedrin_, fol. 17, col. 1.

Yehudah and Chiskiyah, the sons of Rabbi Cheyah, once sat down to a meal
before Rabbi (the Holy) without speaking a word. "Give the boys some
wine," said Rabbi, "that they may have boldness to speak." When they had
partaken of the wine, they said, "The son of David will not come until
the two patriarchal houses of Israel are no more," that is, the head of
the Captivity in Babylon and the Prince in the land of Israel; for it is
written (Isa. viii. 14), "And he shall be for a sanctuary, and for a
stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel."
"Why, children," said Rabbi (who was patriarch of Tiberias), "you are
thrusting thorns into my eyes." Rabbi Cheyah said, "Do not be offended
at them. Wine is given with seventy, and so is a secret (the numerical
value of each of these words is seventy); when wine enters the secret
oozes out."

Ibid., fol. 38, col. 1.

A certain star appears once in seventy years and deceives the sailors
(who guide their vessels by the position of the heavenly bodies; and
this star appears sometimes in the north and sometimes in the
south.--_Rashi_.)

_Horayoth_, fol. 10, col. 1.

As eating olive berries causes one to forget things that he has known
for seventy years, so olive oil brings back to the memory things which
happened seventy years before.

Ibid., fol. 13, col. 2,

The outside of the shell of the purple mollusk resembles the sea in
color; its bodily conformation is like that of a fish; it rises once in
seventy years; its blood is used to dye wool purple, and therefore this
color is dear.

_Menachoth_, fol. 44, col. 1.

The bearing-time of the flat-headed otter lasts seventy years; a
parallel may be found in the carob-tree, from the planting to the
ripening of the pods of which is seventy years.

_Berachoth_, fol. 8, col. 1.

The Sanhedrin consisted of seventy-one members. It is recorded that
Rabbi Yossi said, "Seldom was there contention in Israel, but the
judicial court of seventy-one sat in the Lishkath-hagazith, i.e., Paved
Hall, and two (ordinary) courts of justice consisting of twenty-three,
one of which sat at the entrance of the Temple-Mount, and the other at
the entrance of the ante-court; and also (provincial) courts of justice,
also comprising twenty-three members, which held their sessions in all
the cities of Israel. When an Israelite had a question to propose, he
asked it first of the court in his own city. If they understood the
case, they settled the matter; but if not, they applied to the court of
the next city. If the neighboring justices could not decide, they went
together and laid the case in debate before the court which held its
session at the entrance of the Temple-Mount. If these courts, in turn,
failed to solve the problem, they appealed to the court that sat in the
entrance of the ante-court, where a discussion was entered into upon the
moot points of the case; if no decision could be arrived at, they all
referred to the (supreme) court of seventy-one, where the matter was
finally decided by the majority of votes."

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