Titus at Sea and the Gnat That Humbled Rome

Midrash Aggadah Hebraic Literature (Harris, 1901), Talmudic Miscellany

Curated by The Jewish Mythology Team · Published January 24, 2025

When Titus sacked Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Talmud tells us, he did not content himself with fire and slaughter. He stripped the Temple of its sacred vessels, wrapped them in the veil of the Holy of Holies, and loaded them onto a ship bound for Rome.

At sea, a storm rose up. The waves reared like mountains. Titus stood on deck and shouted into the wind, “It seems the God of the Jews has power only on water. He drowned Pharaoh. He drowned Sisera. Now He comes for me. If He is truly mighty, let Him meet me on land.”

A voice answered from heaven. “Wicked one, son of a wicked father, grandson of Esau the wicked — go ashore. I have a creature in My world, the smallest of things. Go and fight it.”

The rabbis say a gnat entered Titus’s nostril and grew inside his skull for seven years, tapping away at his brain until he died. The emperor who boiled the seas could not kill an insect.

The storyteller's point lands before you see it coming: tyrants imagine God is a local deity, bound to one terrain. The God of Israel answers from whichever direction humbles them most.

Themes

Destruction Divine justice Temple

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