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The King Who Healed His Servant's Sore Foot

A king orders a physician to heal his servant's foot, and the midrash names that order as the shape of love's affliction for Israel.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Sore That Was Not Punishment Alone
  2. The Tyrants Who Started in Joy
  3. Abraham's Early Quarrels and Late Peace
  4. Mountains Without End, a Deep Without Floor
  5. The Window While Mercy Stands

The servant limped into the courtyard with the sore still open on his foot. Flies found it before the palace physician did. The king did not turn away. He pointed at the wound and ordered the doctor to clean it, bind it, and bring the man back whole, not half-healed and discarded.

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That order is how the midrash names the trouble that falls on Israel. Not a lash thrown in rage. A treatment that hurts because the one who loves will not leave the flesh to rot.

The Sore That Was Not Punishment Alone

God does not send every blow as a sentence. When the verse says the Lord corrects the one He loves, the picture is a father who will not let a son limp forever for the sake of the son's pride. Scholars who lose children young find their grief counted as atonement, and the midrash dares to say those young souls arrive pure in the world to come. The pain is real. The framing is love, not theater.

Beginnings and endings reverse for the righteous and the wicked. The righteous open in strife and close in joy. The wicked open in joy and close in strife. The pattern is not a proverb carved on a wall. It is a map of known lives.

The Tyrants Who Started in Joy

Pharaoh stood over the Nile and called the river his own making. He ended under the wheels of his chariots when the sea closed. Sennacherib mocked Jerusalem and swore no god could save the city from his hand. He ended cut down by his own sons while bowing to the idol he trusted. Nebuchadnezzar swore he would climb above the clouds and be like the Most High. He ended cast down, grass in his mouth, mind stripped until the season of his pride was spent.

Each of them began the story with a feast of power. Each of them finished it broken. The midrash lines them up not to gloat, but to show that joy at the start of a wicked path is not a promise. It is bait.

Abraham's Early Quarrels and Late Peace

Abraham began with herdsmen fighting over wells and with a journey that pulled him from every familiar street. He ended old, blessed in all things, the quarrels settled into inheritance. The same measure that crushed the tyrants lifted him, because the measure of goodness, the sages insist, is always greater than the measure of punishment.

Rabbi Yose works the math backward from Adam. One prohibition broken once, and death ran through every generation. If a single refusal can seed that much loss, then a person who refuses forbidden food, who fasts on the Day of Atonement, who gathers charity for the poor, sends merit forward without an edge. The accidental killer in the forest still receives a city of refuge. How much more the one who means the kindness.

A farmer who forgets a sheaf in the field and blesses no one still earns a blessing written in the Torah. A coin that slips from a cloak and feeds a stranger the owner never saw is counted as if both hands had opened on purpose.

Mountains Without End, a Deep Without Floor

David sang that God's righteousness is like the mighty mountains and His judgments a great deep. The mountains march past the horizon. No last ridge. So the reward for those who walked uprightly has no last coin. The tehom, the deep, swallows every measuring line. So the punishment of the wicked in the time to come has no floor a rope can find.

Which immensity becomes the inheritance is the choice the psalm forces open. The midrash does not soften the choice. It only refuses to pretend the two sides are the same size. Reward heaped like everlasting hills. Justice plunging past every cord.

The Window While Mercy Stands

A person can stack wrongdoing heap by heap until the pile looks past saving. God sees the stack. For the one who turns, He declines to dwell on it. The heaps do not get the last word.

The summons still carries a clock. Return while the attribute of mercy still stands on the bench. Come back while the same Name that defends has not yet turned to accuse. The door is open now. The advocate is still an advocate. The window is not forever, and that is why the servant with the sore foot is not told to wait until the wound invents its own cure.

Watch the servant leave the courtyard with the bandage still tight. He does not thank the pain. He thanks the king who refused to call the limp natural. Israel under affliction is not asked to enjoy the knife. Israel is asked to recognize the physician's order inside it, and to walk back toward the One who still wants the body whole.

The tyrants never learned that lesson. They mistook early joy for proof of heaven's favor. Abraham learned the opposite arithmetic: early strife can be the road to a late table of blessing. The mountains of reward and the deep of judgment are not equal piles. The midrash forces the comparison so no one pretends the scales are flat.

SufferingMercyRewardPharaohRepentance
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From the tradition

Sources

4 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Tanna debei Eliyahu Zuta 11:1Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Zuta

Translation of the source text.Tanna debei Eliyahu Zuta, Warsaw 1880 · Public Domain

Afflictions come upon Israel only for their good, and afflictions come only out of love for Israel. To what may this be compared? To a king who had a servant, and a sore broke out on his foot, and the king commanded the physician to heal him and to bring him before him whole, as it is said, "My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be weary of His correction" (Proverbs 3:11). What is written after it? "For whom the LORD loves He corrects, even as a father the son in whom he delights" (Proverbs 3:12). These are the afflictions of love. These are the disciples of the wise, the righteous, whose sons die in their youth, and it atones for them for their iniquities in this world, and afterward they come in purity to the life of the world to come. And even though Scripture says, "Also in your skirts is found the blood of the souls of the innocent poor" (Jeremiah 2:34), nevertheless Scripture returns and appeases their children, as it is said, "Even as a father the son in whom he delights" (Proverbs 3:12). From here they said: the righteous, their beginning is strife and their end is joy; and the wicked, their beginning is joy and their end is strife.

Pharaoh king of Egypt had joy in his youth and his end was strife. In his youth what does he say? "The river is mine, and I made myself" (Ezekiel 29:3); but at his end what does it say? "Pharaoh's chariots and his army He cast into the sea" (Exodus 15:4). And so too Sennacherib had joy in his youth and his end was strife. In his youth what does he say? "Who among all the gods of the lands has delivered their land out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?" (2 Kings 18:35); but at his end what does it say? "And the angel of the LORD went forth and struck in the camp of Assyria a hundred and eighty-five thousand... and Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and dwelt in Nineveh; and as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword" (2 Kings 19:35-37). And so too Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had joy in his youth and his end was strife. In his youth what does he say? "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:14); but at his end what does it say? "Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit" (Isaiah 14:15). And so too all the rest of the wicked of the nations: their beginning is joy and in their end they go down to Sheol.

And how do you know to say thus, that the wicked of the nations go down to Sheol? Go and learn: from the day the world was created until Israel went out of Egypt and came to Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, the Holy One, blessed be He, went round to every nation and tongue and told them to accept the Torah, and they did not accept it; and in every generation witnesses came and testified concerning them. And these are they: Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, and Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite, and Job from the land of Uz, and Beor, and Balaam son of Beor, who was the last of them all. And with what was the Torah written? You must say that the Torah was written only with the right hand of the Holy One, blessed be He, as it is said, "From His right hand went a fiery law for them" (Deuteronomy 33:2); so too from the right hand of the Holy One, blessed be He, fire goes forth against the nations who go down to Sheol, as it is said, "The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God" (Psalms 9:18). Had Scripture said "The wicked shall return to Sheol" and been silent, I would have said it means the wicked of Israel and the wicked of the nations; but since it then says "all the nations that forget God," you have only those wicked ones who forget God, who are the wicked of the nations mentioned above alone.

And how do you know that the righteous, their beginning is strife and their end joy? Abraham had strife in his youth and his end was joy. In his youth what does it say? "And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle" (Genesis 13:7); but at his end what does it say? "And Abraham was old, advanced in days, and the LORD had blessed Abraham in all things" (Genesis 24:1). And so too Isaac had strife in his youth and his end was joy. In his youth what does it say? "And the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac" (Genesis 26:20); but at his end what does it say? "And he made them a feast" (Genesis 26:30). And so too Jacob had strife in his youth and his end was joy. In his youth what does it say? "I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against Him, until He pleads my cause and executes my judgment; He will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold His righteousness" (Micah 7:9), and it says, "I will praise You, O LORD, for though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away and You comfort me" (Isaiah 12:1); but at his end what does it say? "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid, for the LORD God is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation" (Isaiah 12:2).

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 479:1Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet (Yalkut Shimoni) · CC-BY-NC

Rabbi Yose says: If you wish to know the reward of the righteous in the world to come, go and learn from Adam the first man, who was commanded only a single negative commandment and transgressed it. See how many deaths were decreed upon him and upon his descendants and upon the descendants of his descendants until the end of all generations. Now which measure is greater, the measure of goodness or the measure of punishment? You must say the measure of goodness. If the measure of punishment, though lesser, brought so many deaths upon him and his descendants until the end of all generations, then one who refrains from refuse-sacrifice and from leftover, and who fasts on the Day of Atonement, how much more will he bring merit to himself and to his descendants and to the descendants of his descendants until the end of all generations. Rabbi Akiva says: Scripture says, "At the mouth of two witnesses, or three" (Deuteronomy 17:6). If testimony is established by two, why did Scripture specify three for you? Only to bring the third in order to deal severely with him, to treat his case like these. If Scripture thus punished one who attaches himself to those who commit a transgression, how much more will it pay reward to one who attaches himself to those who perform a commandment, as one who performs the commandment.

Rabbi says: Scripture says, "And as one who goes into the forest with his neighbor to hew wood, and his hand fetches a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the wood and finds his neighbor that he die, he shall flee" (Deuteronomy 19:5). Scripture established the saving of life for one before whom a doubtful matter of life came and he knew it not. Say from now: one who collects funds for charity and supports the poor and performs acts of lovingkindness, how much more shall his life be granted to him.

Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah says: Scripture says, "When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to fetch it; it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow, that the LORD your God may bless you" (Deuteronomy 24:19). Scripture established a blessing for one to whose hand a commandment came without his knowing. Say from now: if a sela was bound in his garment and fell from him, and a poor person found it and was sustained by it, behold, Scripture establishes a blessing for him, as for one who forgets a sheaf in the midst of his field.

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Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Emor 7:5Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Emor

Translation of the source text.Midrash Tanchuma (Buber), Public Domain, on Sefaria · CC-BY-SA

Another interpretation (of Psalms 36:7 [6]): "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains." Just as these mountains have no end, so there is no end to the giving of the reward of the righteous in the time to come. "And Your judgments are a great deep." Just as the deep has no fathoming, so there is no fathoming to the punishment of the wicked in the time to come.

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Pesikta DeRav Kahana 24:13Pesikta de-Rav Kahana

Translation of the source text.Pesikta de Rav Kahana according to an Oxford manuscript, Dov Mandelbaum ed., N.Y. 1987 · CC-BY

Rabbi Issachar of Kefar Mandi expounded: "For He knows worthless men; He sees iniquity, and will He not consider it?" (Job 11:11). In the way of the world, a man piles up heap upon heap of transgressions, and then does repentance, as it were - "He sees iniquity, but will not consider it" [God overlooks it].

Taught in the name of Rabbi Meir: "Return, O Israel" (Hosea 14:2) - while He still stands in the attribute of mercy; and if not, "to the LORD your God" (Hosea 14:2) - before the defender becomes the prosecutor.

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