Tractate Yoma (folio 9, column 1) asks a question no one would think to ask unless they were counting: how many kohanim gedolim, high priests, served during each of the two Temples, and why?
The sages turned to a verse in Proverbs: "The fear of the Lord prolongs days, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened" (Proverbs 10:27). They read the first half as a portrait of the First Temple, which stood for 410 years. In all that time the succession of high priests numbered only eighteen — long lifetimes, long tenures, a priesthood rooted in reverence.
The second half, about the wicked, was a portrait of the Second Temple. That Temple stood 420 years — ten years longer — and yet the high priesthood passed through more than three hundred men. The rabbis noted three righteous exceptions: Shimon the Righteous, who served forty years; Rabbi Yochanan, who served eighty; and Rabbi Ishmael ben Fabi, who served ten. Deduct their 130 years and you find that not one of the remaining high priests lived to hold office a single full year.
The numbers are not a statistic; they are a diagnosis. When the priesthood became a prize to be bought, life itself refused to stay in the office. Holy work, the rabbis are saying, will not hold together hands that bought it.