Midrash for Shabbat 37:1
כותח הבבלי וכל מיני כותח אסור למכור ל' יום קודם הפסח:
Babylonian kutah<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Jast.: a preserve consisting of sour milk, bread-crusts and salt. ');"><sup>1</sup></span> and any [other] kind of kutah may not be sold thirty days before Passover.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' It is used as a sauce or relish and hence lasts a long time. It was customary to give popular lectures about the Festivals thirty days before them, and therefore from that time one was forbidden to sell kutah to a Gentile. ');"><sup>2</sup></span>
Sifrei Devarim
"many days": "days" — two; "many" — three. We are hereby taught that peace is offered for two days, and a third day for the battle. And even though there is no proof for this, there is an intimation of it in (I Samuel 30:1) "And David and his men came to Tziklag on the third day." Variantly: From here it is derived that gentile cities are not besieged fewer than three days before the Sabbath, (so that the siege not extend into the Sabbath); but if the siege began, it is not interrupted. And a sea voyage is not begun fewer than three days before the Sabbath. When is this so? For a long voyage, but for a short one, it is permissible.
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Sifrei Devarim
(We are hereby taught that peace is offered for two days, and a third day before the battle. And so it states: (I Samuel 30:1) "And David Remained in Tziklag for two days." And gentile cities are not besieged fewer than three days before the Sabbath, (so that the siege not extend into the Sabbath); but if the siege began, it is not interrupted. This is one of three lessons taught by Shammai the Elder: A sea voyage is not begun fewer than three days before the Sabbath. When is this so? For a long voyage, but for a short one, it is permissible.)
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