“All the streams go to the sea, [yet the sea is not full; to the place that the streams go, there they go again]” (Ecclesiastes 1:7) – there was an incident involving Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, who set sail in the Great Sea, and their ship entered a place in the sea where the water was not moving. Rabbi Eliezer said to Rabbi Yehoshua: ‘We came here only for some test.’19To learn something from our experience.
They filled a barrel of water from that place. When they arrived in Rome, Hadrian, may his bones be crushed, said to them: ‘What is the nature of seawater?’20How is it that the sea does not flood the land with all the streams that flow into it? They said to him: ‘It contains water that absorbs water.’21Certain seawater has the ability to absorb other water into itself without swelling over. He said to them: ‘Give me some of it [to test].’
They gave him a bowlful. He put water into it, and it swallowed it up. According to the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer,22The midrash is addressing the verse cited earlier, “All the streams go to the sea, yet the sea is not full; to the place that the streams go, there they return [shavim] again” (Ecclesiastes 1:7). it is from there [the sea] that they [the streams] draw [sho’avim] water.23The clouds draw water from the sea and then fill the streams.
See section 10. According to the opinion of Rabbi Yehoshua, “there they return [shavim] again.”24The streams do not get their water from the sea; what the verse means is that the water of the streams constantly flows into the sea. “A mist would rise from the earth, and water all of the surface of the ground” (Genesis 2:6). How was the earth watered?
Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Neḥemya, and the Rabbis, Rabbi Yehuda says: Like the Nile, which [floods over and] waters, and then waters again. Rabbi Neḥemya said: Like the inside of the [bed of the] Kavriya Stream, which wells up [and waters it] and is absorbed back into the ground. The rabbis say: It is like the Tavai. There is a river in Babylon named Tavai.
Why do they call it Tavai? It is because it irrigates [its surroundings] once in forty years.25The word tavai is related to tohu (emptiness), as, in between its rare inundations, the surrounding area is desolate. That is the way that the earth was irrigated at the beginning, as it is written: “A mist would rise from the earth,” but the Holy One blessed be He reconsidered, [ordaining] that the earth should [thenceforth] be watered only from above.
Rabbi Ḥanan of Tzippori said in the name of Rabbi Shmuel bar Rabbi Naḥman: The Holy One blessed be He reconsidered, [ordaining] that the earth should be watered only from above, for four reasons: Because of powerful people;26That they should not use their might to take all the water for themselves. in order to wash away harmful dew;27That had accumulated on the crops. so that the highlands could be watered just like the lowlands; and so that everyone would direct their eyes heavenward.28To pray to God for rain. That is what is written: “To raise the lowly on High” (Job 5:11).