204 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Midrash Shmuel, shown in source order. Page 5 of 5.
The sages turned over the last words of David: "And as the light of morning the sun rises, a morning without clouds." What hidden thing did the king mean? They answered that the ve...
"Deliver me from bloodguilt, O God," David prayed — deliver me from the blood of Uriah. Yet the stain remained, and because of it the LORD's anger was again kindled against Israel,...
When David commanded the census, Joab resisted, and the verse says the king's word prevailed over him (2 Samuel 24:4). Joab threw the choice back at David: "Either I am king and yo...
The prophet Gad stood before David and laid out the three doors: seven years of famine, three months of flight before a pursuing enemy, or three days of pestilence in the land. "No...
When the prophet Gad came to David after the census, he laid three punishments before the king and bade him choose. And David answered, "I am in great distress." R. Shimon ben Yoch...
When David numbered Israel, the verse says the LORD sent a pestilence "from the morning even to the time appointed." How long was that appointed time? Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai taugh...
When the angel of destruction stretched his hand over Jerusalem, the sages tell us, on that very day Abishai son of Zeruiah died — for the verse calls the slain a precious pledge h...
A single purchase, two prices — and the sages would not let the riddle rest. David bought the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, the place where the plague had stopped and wher...
After the census and the plague, David built an altar to the LORD upon the threshing-floor, and there the dying stopped. But the wound was real: multitudes of Israel had fallen. Th...
How do the souls that went down to Egypt add up to seventy, when Scripture lists only sixty-six and then three more? Rabbi Levi, in the name of Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman, taught tha...
Why did the great miracle of Purim come through Mordechai and Esther? Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman, citing Rabbi Yonatan, traces it back generations, to the mother of their father's fa...
For forty years in the wilderness, the eve of the Ninth of Av carried a dreadful summons. A herald went out from before Moses and cried through the camp: "Go out and dig!" And so e...
