The Merciful One Strikes Property Before He Strikes Lives

Rabbi Huna and Rabbi Yehoshua bar Avin, the son-in-law of Rabbi Levi, in the name of Rabbi Levi: The Master of Mercy does not touch lives first. From whom do you learn this? From Job, "And a messenger came to Job and said, The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them" (Job 1:14). What is "and the donkeys feeding beside them"? Rabbi Hama said: A sample of the World to Come was made for him, as it is said, "The plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed" (Amos 9:13). Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: They went out from the village of Krinos and passed through all the meadows, and when they reached the tower of the dyers they died there. Rabbi Hama said: "only" (Job 1:16) is a limiting term he too was broken and stricken. Rabbi Yudan said: From "alone" until "to tell you" (ibid.) he too, as soon as he told his news, immediately died, as it is written, "While this one was still speaking, another came" (Job 1:18). When Job heard this, he began mustering his troops against them for war, as it is written, "For I dreaded the great multitude, and the contempt of families terrified me, so that I kept silence and did not go out the door" (Job 31:34). Job said: A nation despised among all the nations, "Behold the land of the Chaldeans this is the people that was not" (Isaiah 23:13), and would that it were not so it intends to put its terror upon me. As soon as they said to him, "The fire of God fell from heaven" (Job 1:16), he said: If it is from heaven, what can I do? Immediately, "I did not go out the door" (Job 31:34). And afterward, "He took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself" (Job 2:8). So too with Mahlon and Khilyon: first their horses and camels and donkeys died, and afterward he himself died, as it is said, "And Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died" (Ruth 1:3), and afterward his two sons died, "And they also both died, Mahlon and Khilyon" (ibid. 1:5), and afterward she herself [was bereaved]. And so too with the plagues that come upon a person: first it begins with his house if he repents, the stones must be removed, "And they shall remove the stones" (Leviticus 14:40); if he does not repent, it must be torn down, "And he shall tear down the house" (ibid. 14:45). And afterward it begins with his garments if he repents, they must be torn, "And he shall tear it out of the garment or the leather or the warp or the woof" (Leviticus 13:56); if he does not repent, they must be burned, "And he shall burn the garment" (ibid. 13:52). And afterward it begins with his body if he repents, he goes out and recovers, and if he does not repent, "He shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp" (Leviticus 13:46). And in Egypt it was so: first the attribute of judgment touched their property, "He struck their vines and their fig trees" (Psalms 105:33), "He gave over their cattle to the hail and their livestock to the bolts of lightning" (Psalms 78:48), and afterward, "He struck every firstborn in Egypt" (Psalms 78:51).