The rabbis of undefined Rabbah made a stunning claim: every time the Hebrew word vayhi ("it was") appears in the Torah, it signals disaster. Rabbi Tanhuma, Rabbi Berekhya, and Rabbi Hiyya the Great all transmitted this tradition, saying it came up with them from the Exile itself. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahman narrowed it further: whenever the phrase vayhi bimei ("it was in the days of") appears, trouble is guaranteed. He identified five such cases in all of scripture.
The first: "It was during the days of Amrafel king of Shinar" (Genesis 14:1). The trouble? War came to the land, and the invading kings targeted Abraham, the beloved of God, seeking to blind "the eye of the world." The second: "It was during the days when the judges judged" (Ruth 1:1). The trouble was famine, sent because the people humiliated their own judges. The third: "It was during the days of Ahaz" (Isaiah 7:1). Ahaz locked every synagogue and study hall in the kingdom, reasoning that if there are no children, there are no students, and if there are no students, there is no Torah, and if there is no Torah, God will not rest His presence in the world. The fourth: "It was during the days of Yehoyakim" (Jeremiah 1:3). King Yehoyakim took a scroll of prophecy, cut it apart with a razor, and burned it in a fireplace (Jeremiah 36:23). The fifth: "It was during the days of Ahasuerus" (Esther 1:1). The trouble was Haman's decree: "to destroy, to kill, and to eliminate" (Esther 3:13).
The rabbis then challenged Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahman with every use of vayhi that seemed positive. What about "God said: Let there be light, and there was light"? He replied: even that was not joy, because the primordial light was too powerful for the world and God had to hide it away for the righteous in the World to Come. What about "The Lord was with Joseph" (Genesis 39:2)? Not joy either, because it led directly to Potiphar's wife attacking him. What about the day Moses completed the Tabernacle (Numbers 7:1)? Still not joy, because the Tabernacle was eventually put away when the permanent Temple was built. What about "David was successful in all his ways" (I Samuel 18:14)? That provoked Saul's murderous jealousy.
Finally, they conceded: "We said ours, now you say yours." He showed that the word vehaya ("it will be"), the future tense, always signals joy. "It will be on that day, the mountains will drip with nectar" (Joel 4:18). "It will be on that day that spring water will emerge from Jerusalem" (Zechariah 14:8). "A great shofar will be sounded" (Isaiah 27:13). Vayhi is the grammar of catastrophe. Vehaya is the grammar of redemption.