Saul, Absalom, and the Giant Carobs of an Earlier Age

"And he had a son" etc., "and there was no man among the children of Israel better than he" (1 Samuel 9:2). One might think [he was best] in every respect; therefore Scripture teaches: "from his shoulders upward he was taller than all the people" (ibid., ibid.). And similar to it: "And like Absalom there was no man" etc. (2 Samuel 14:25); one might think [he was so] in every respect; therefore Scripture teaches: "And he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels by the king's stone" (ibid., ibid. 26), [and he was hung by his hair]. Rabbi Hanina said: it was like a carob branch. And if you say it was a spear, it was made in rods, rod by rod; and if you say it was like a small carob shoot— Rabbi Hanina said: when I came up from the exile, I loosened my belt, and that of my beast, and that of my father's son, to encircle the trunk of one carob, and I could not. Rabbi Hanina said: when I came up from the exile, I took a carob and split it, and there flowed out a full palm of my hand of honey. This says: in their days the world was different.