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.