Commentary for Avodah Zarah 49:23

The book of Joshua mysteriously refers to a book known as “the book of Yashar.” According to R. Yohanan this is book is Genesis, the book about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who were called righteous by Balaam. Balaam asks to die the death of the righteous—the good death that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob died.

The rabbis now try to find a verse in Genesis that hints at the episode of the sun standing still. In Jacob’s blessing at the end of the work, he foresees that Ephraim’s seed will “fill the nations.” The simple reading is probably that the tribe of Ephraim will be numerous. But the midrashic meaning is taken to be that Ephraim’s fame will fill the nations when a member of the tribe performs a wondrous act.

According to R. Joshua b. Levi the sun stood still for an extra 12 hours, such that the day which should take a total of 12 hours, actually took a total of 24 hours.

According to R. Elazar the sun stopped for a full 24 hours, divided into two periods. This is the meaning of “a whole day”—the sun stopped for a whole day.

R. Shmuel b. Nahmani says that its second period of stopping was a full day, but that the first time it stopped was not a full day.
All of these amoraim are interpreting the verse, “And the sun stayed in the midst of the heaven and hastened not to go down for about a whole day.” The verse seems to hint at two stoppages—“stayed in the midst of the heaven” is the first stoppage and “hastened not to go down” is the second. Then the question is how long were these stoppages and what does the phrase “for about a whole day” mean? Was the whole process one day? Were the two stops one day? Or was one stop a day in and of itself?

This is a different version of the tripartite dispute over how long the sun stood still. Here the dispute is characterized as being not over the total time, but over how long the total stoppage was—24, 36 or 48.

That the sun stood still for Joshua is in the Bible itself. There is an unrecorded oral tradition that the sun stood still for Nakdimon b. Gorion, a wealthy member of the elite in Jerusalem around the time of the destruction of the Temple. Rashi says it refers to an instance in Taanit 19b where Nakdimon borrowed 18 springs for the pilgrims to Israel to use. When the time came to pay back the water, and the springs were empty, a miracle occurred and the heavens opened and water filled up the springs. But the king who loaned him the springs claimed that Nakdimon was late and that the day ended without him paying back his debt. Nakdimon prayed and the clouds departed and they saw that it was day.

The amoraim here try to prove that the sun stood still for Moses. The first two amoraim learn this through an exegetical trick called a “gezerah shavah.” This is when the same word appears in two contexts and they say that information stated in one context could also apply to the other.
The third amora learns it from his analysis of the verse itself. He assumes that people would have trembled in front of Moses only if he performed something truly awesome, such as getting the sun to stand still.

The Talmud asks the obvious difficulty—it says explicitly in the book of Joshua that there was no day like that in all of history. So how can we say it happened two other times! The Talmud offers two solutions—1) the sun stood still longer for Joshua; 2) There were hailstones in the time of Joshua, but not during the time when the sun stood still for Moses or Nakdimon.
This verse from Joshua is of particular appeal to me. I drive home every day past Bet Horon, on my descent to Jerusalem. And I frequently ride my bike past a junction called “Azeka” for it is near Tel Azeka. I don’t think that Bet Horon today is where ancient Bet Horon really was, but Azeka probably is. Pretty cool to live in Israel.

The first part of this quote is the same that we saw above—Sefer Hayashar is Genesis. Then the Talmud asks where the hint is in Genesis that the children of Judah should learn to use the bow. This they find in a creative reading of Jacob’s blessing in Genesis 49:8. Judah is told that his hands will be on the neck of your enemies. The midrash interprets this to mean not on the neck, but directed at their necks, with arrows.

R. Elazar identifies Sefer Hayashar with Deuteronomy which uses the word “yashar.” Moses hints in his blessing that Judah will fight wars with his “hands”—and archery requires two hands.

R. Shmuel b. Nahmani uses a similar technique to determine that Sefer Hayashar is the book of Judges.
But there is one problem with this verse—we need the verse to refer to Judah because Judah is the tribe mentioned in the quote from II Samuel about the bow. Judges 3:2 does not seem to refer to Judah. They solve this by saying that the beginning of Judges refers to Judah. Rashi explains that this implies that all wars mentioned in the book of Judges are with the tribe of Judah, unless otherwise specified.

The same three amoraim argue here over the meaning of the verse in which a cook gives a thigh of an animal that “that which was upon it” to Saul.
The “waving” here has to do with a sacrifice that has to be waved, the thigh and the breast together.
The “cap” seems to be the hip bone, or something in that area.

The Mishnah states that a Jewish woman should not be left alone with a non-Jewish man. The question is—how does this differ from the rule with regard to being left alone with Israelites? The Mishnah in Kiddushin rules that a woman should not be isolated with a Jewish man. Therefore, the prohibition here must refer even to three idolaters. While she can be alone with three Jews, she cannot be alone with three idolaters. [Rashi explains that the Talmud says “three” and not two because a woman is always allowed to be isolated with three Jewish men. Sometimes, she may not be isolated with two. For instance, if they are on the road. If one needed to go to the bathroom, she would be isolated with one].