mice

Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.

Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.

And they laid the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods.

And the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both of fenced cities, and of country villages, even unto the great stone of Abel, whereon they set down the ark of the LORD: which stone remaineth unto this day in the field of Joshua, the Bethshemite.

Carried away by ignorance and not knowing God as we do, according to the perfect knowledge, but shaping those things over which he gave them power, for their use, even wood and stones, brass and iron, gold and silver (forgetting) their material and proper use, they set up things subservient to their existence and worship them; and what things God hath given them for food, the fowls of the air and the creatures that swim in the sea and creep upon the earth, wild beasts and fourfooted cattle of the field, weasels too and mice, cats and dogs and apes; yea, their own eatables do they sacrifice as offerings to eatable gods, and offering dead things to the dead as to gods, they show ingratitude to God, by these practices denying that he exists …

For you must not fall into the degrading idea that it was out of regard to mice and weasels and other such things that Moses drew up his laws with such exceeding care.

For the character of the weasel and of mice and such animals as these, which are expressly mentioned, is destructive.

Mice defile and damage everything, not only for their own food but even to the extent of rendering absolutely useless to man whatever it falls in their way to damage.

And the Lord sent fiery serpents, scorpions, mice, weasels, toads, together with others creeping in dust.

(Now this covering was made of threads of the finest gold wirework twisted together and hammered out into a pattern, and they were not woven like the threads of purple.) "And the five mice which were given to Zion, and the ten figures of their shame (i.e. the emerods) which the nobles of the Philistines made for their redemption--now on the fringes are figures of gold that came forth from the land of kades, which Moses in Sinai commanded should be made (or, worked) in the fringe of the apparel of Aaron his brother--gather [all these] together in the covering of Zion and give [them] to my son David.

And Dagon was broken to pieces and destroyed, and became like dust, and their land became a desert through mice, and they ate up all the fruit of their land, and their persons became sores and boils.

And the priests of the Philistines took counsel together again, and they said unto their kings and governors, `Make for her according to the heads of your houses, sixty figures of mice in gold, since mice have destroyed your land, and sixty figures of the member of a man, since your own persons have suffered from sores and boils on your members.'

And the priests of the Philistines took counsel together again, and they said unto their kings and governors, `Make for her according to the heads of your houses, sixty figures of mice in gold, since mice have destroyed your land, and sixty figures of the member of a man, since your own persons have suffered from sores and boils on your members.'

When the Philistines had taken the ark of the Hebrews captive, as I said a little before, they carried it to the city of Ashdod, and put it by their own god, who was called Dagon, as one of their spoils; but when they went into his temple the next morning to worship their god, they found him paying the same worship to the ark, for he lay along, as having fallen down from the basis whereon he had stood: so they took him up, and set him on his basis again, and were much troubled at what had happened; and as they frequently came to Dagon and found him still lying along, in a posture of adoration to the ark, they were in very great distress and confusion. At length God sent a very destructive disease upon the city and country of Ashdod, for they died of the dysentery or flux, a sore distemper, that brought death upon them very suddenly; for before the soul could, as usual in easy deaths, be well loosed from the body, they brought up their entrails, and vomited up what they had eaten, and what was entirely corrupted by the disease. And as to the fruits of their country, a great multitude of mice arose out of the earth and hurt them, and spared neither the plants nor the fruits. Now while the people of Ashdod were under these misfortunes, and were not able to support themselves under their calamities, they perceived that they suffered thus because of the ark, and that the victory they had gotten, and their having taken the ark captive, had not happened for their good; they therefore sent to the people of Askelon, and desired that they would receive the ark among them. This desire of the people of Ashdod was not disagreeable to those of Askelon, so they granted them that favor. But when they had gotten the ark, they were in the same miserable condition; for the ark carried along with it the disasters that the people of Ashdod had suffered, to those who received it from them. Those of Askelon also sent it away from themselves to others: nor did it stay among those others neither; for since they were pursued by the same disasters, they still sent it to the neighboring cities; so that the ark went round, after this manner, to the five cities of the Philistines, as though it exacted these disasters as a tribute to be paid it for its coming among them.

When those that had experienced these miseries were tired out with them, and when those that heard of them were taught thereby not to admit the ark among them, since they paid so dear a tribute for it, at length they sought for some contrivance and method how they might get free from it: so the governors of the five cities, Gath, and Ekron, and Askelon, as also of Gaza, and Ashdod, met together, and considered what was fit to be done; and at first they thought proper to send the ark back to its own people, as allowing that God had avenged its cause; that the miseries they had undergone came along with it, and that these were sent on their cities upon its account, and together with it. However, there were those that said they should not do so, nor suffer themselves to be deluded, as ascribing the cause of their miseries to it, because it could not have such power and force upon them; for, had God had such a regard to it, it would not have been delivered into the hands of men. So they exhorted them to be quiet, and to take patiently what had befallen them, and to suppose there was no other cause of it but nature, which, at certain revolutions of time, produces such mutations in the bodies of men, in the earth, in plants, and in all things that grow out of the earth. But the counsel that prevailed over those already described, was that of certain men, who were believed to have distinguished themselves in former times for their understanding and prudence, and who, in their present circumstances, seemed above all the rest to speak properly. These men said it was not right either to send the ark away, or to retain it, but to dedicate five golden images, one for every city, as a thank-offering to God, on account of his having taken care of their preservation, and having kept them alive when their lives were likely to be taken away by such distempers as they were not able to bear up against. They also would have them make five golden mice like to those that devoured and destroyed their country to put them in a bag, and lay them upon the ark; to make them a new cart also for it, and to yoke milch kine to it but to shut up their calves, and keep them from them, lest, by following after them, they should prove a hinderance to their dams, and that the dams might return the faster out of a desire of those calves; then to drive these milch kine that carried the ark, and leave it at a place where three ways met, and So leave it to the kine to go along which of those ways they pleased; that in case they went the way to the Hebrews, and ascended to their country, they should suppose that the ark was the cause of their misfortunes; but if they turned into another road, they said, "We will pursue after it, and conclude that it has no such force in it."

So they determined that these men spake well; and they immediately confirmed their opinion by doing accordingly. And when they had done as has been already described, they brought the cart to a place where three ways met, and left it there and went their ways; but the kine went the right way, and as if some persons had driven them, while the rulers of the Philistines followed after them, as desirous to know where they would stand still, and to whom they would go. Now there was a certain village of the tribe of Judah, the name of which was Bethshemesh, and to that village did the kine go; and though there was a great and good plain before them to proceed in, they went no farther, but stopped the cart there. This was a sight to those of that village, and they were very glad; for it being then summer-time, and all the inhabitants being then in the fields gathering in their fruits, they left off the labors of their hands for joy, as soon as they saw the ark, and ran to the cart, and taking the ark down, and the vessel that had the images in it, and the mice, they set them upon a certain rock which was in the plain; and when they had offered a splendid sacrifice to God, and feasted, they offered the cart and the kine as a burnt-offering: and when the lords of the Philistines saw this, they returned back.

About the same time also the king of Assyria wrote an epistle to Hezekiah, in which he said he was a foolish man, in supposing that he should escape from being his servant, since he had already brought under many and great nations; and he threatened, that when he took him, he would utterly destroy him, unless he now opened the gates, and willingly received his army into Jerusalem. When he read this epistle, he despised it, on account of the trust that he had in God; but he rolled up the epistle, and laid it up within the temple. And as he made his further prayers to God for the city, and for the preservation of all the people, the prophet Isaiah said that God had heard his prayer, and that he should not be besieged at this time by the king of Assyria that for the future he might be secure of not being at all disturbed by him; and that the people might go on peaceably, and without fear, with their husbandry and other affairs. But after a little while the king of Assyria, when he had failed of his treacherous designs against the Egyptians, returned home without success, on the following occasion: He spent a long time in the siege of Pelusium; and when the banks that he had raised over against the walls were of a great height, and when he was ready to make an immediate assault upon them, but heard that Tirhaka, king of the Ethiopians, was coming and bringing great forces to aid the Egyptians, and was resolved to march through the desert, and so to fall directly upon the Assyrians, this king Sennacherib was disturbed at the news, and, as I said before, left Pelusium, and returned back without success. Now concerning this Sennacherib, Herodotus also says, in the second book of his histories, how "this king came against the Egyptian king, who was the priest of Vulcan; and that as he was besieging Pelusium, he broke up the siege on the following occasion: This Egyptian priest prayed to God, and God heard his prayer, and sent a judgment upon the Arabian king." But in this Herodotus was mistaken, when he called this king not king of the Assyrians, but of the Arabians; for he saith that "a multitude of mice gnawed to pieces in one night both the bows and the rest of the armor of the Assyrians, and that it was on that account that the king, when he had no bows left, drew off his army from Pelusium." And Herodotus does indeed give us this history; nay, and Berosus, who wrote of the affairs of Chaldea, makes mention of this king Sennacherib, and that he ruled over the Assyrians, and that he made an expedition against all Asia and Egypt; and says thus:

When Alexander was king and had subdued countries and cities, and had arrived in the East, he saw on the confines of the East those men who are of the children of Japhet. They were more wicked and unclean than all (other) dwellers in the world; filthy peoples of hideous appearance, who ate mice and the creeping things of the earth and snakes and scorpions. They never buried the bodies of their dead, and they ate as dainties the children which women aborted and the after-birth. People ignorant of God, and unacquainted with the power of reason, but who lived in this world without understanding like ravening beasts. When Alexander saw their wickedness, he called God to his aid, and he gathered together and brought them and their wives and children, and made them go in, and shut them up within the confines of the North. This is the gate of the world on the north, and there is no other entrance or exit from the confines of the world from the east to the north. And Alexander prayed to God with tears, and God heard his prayer and commanded those two lofty mountains which are called ‘ the children of the north,’ and they drew nigh to one another until there remained between them about twelve cubits. Then he built in front of them a strong building, and he made for it a door of brass, and anointed it within and without with oil of Thesnahtis x, so that if they should bring iron (implements) near it to force it open, they would be unable to move it; and if they wished to melt it with fire, it would quench it; and it feared neither the operations of devils nor of sorcerers, and was not to be overcome (by them). Now there were twenty-two kingdoms imprisoned within the northern gate, and their names are these: Gog, Magog, Nawal, Eshkenaz, Denaphar, Paktaye, Weldtaye, Humnaye, Parzaye, Daklaye, Thaubelaye, Darmetaye, Kawkebaye, Dog-men (Cynocephali), Emderatha, Garmidb', Cannibals, Therkaye, Alanaye, Pisilon, Denkaye, Saltraye. At the end of the world and at the final consummation, when men are eating and drinking and marrying wives, and women are given to husbands; when they are planting vineyards and building buildings, and there is neither wicked man nor adversary, on account of the assured tranquillity and certain peace; suddenly the gates of the north shall be opened and the hosts of the nations that are imprisoned there shall go forth. The whole earth shall tremble before them, and men shall flee and take refuge in the mountains and in caves and in burial places and in clefts of the earth; and they shall die of hunger, and there will be none to bury them, by reason of the multitude of afflictions which they will make men suffer. They will eat the flesh of men and drink the blood of animals; they will devour the creeping things of the earth, and hunt for serpents and scorpions and reptiles that shoot out venom, and eat them. They will eat dead dogs and cats, and the abortions of women with the after-birth; they will give mothers the bodies of their children to cook, and they will eat them before them without shame, They will destroy the earth, and there will be none able to stand before them. After one week of that sore affliction, they will all be destroyed in the plain of Joppa, for thither will all those (people) be gathered together, with their wives and their sons and their daughters; and by the command of God one of the hosts of the angels will descend and will destroy them in one moment.

They may trap moles and mice in a tree-field or a white field in an unusual way during the festival and in the sabbatical year. But the sages say: in the tree-field in the usual way and in the white field in an unusual way. And they may block up a breach in a wall during the festival, and in the sabbatical year they may build it in the usual way.

When a man leaves produce for his fellow, [and his fellow returns it to the owner] he may exact reductions [due to natural depletion of the produce]. For wheat and rice, nine half kabs to the kor. For barley and durra nine kabs to the kor. For spelt and linseed three seahs to the kor. All is in proportion to the quantity and according to the time [it is left]. Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri said: “But what do the mice care about [the quantity]? Won’t they eat [the same amount] whether there is a lot or a little? Rather, he may exact a reduction from only one kor. Rabbi Judah says: “If the quantity was great he may not exact any reduction, since the produce increases in bulk.”

If a man’s debt document was erased, he must have witnesses testify with regards to the loan, and come before the court to make this attestation: “So and so, the son of so and so, his debt document was erased on such and such a day, and so and so and so and so are his witnesses.” If a man had paid part of his debt, Rabbi Judah says: “He should exchange the debt document for a new one.” Rabbi Yose says: “He should write a receipt.” Rabbi Judah said: “It turns out that this one (the debtor) will have to guard his receipt from mice.” Rabbi Yose said to him: “That’s good for him, as long as the rights of the other (the creditor) have not been damaged.

What is the point of divergence between them ? Rabina said : They differ whether we have fear of mice [gnawing the body] ; the former holds there is such fear, the other there is not.

Our Rabbis have taught : At first people used to leave the Tefillin in holes near the privy, but mice came and carried them away ; therefore it was ordained that they should be left on window-sills near the public road ; but because passers-by used to take them, it was ordained that they should hold them in their hand and enter.

It was stated: An etrog which has been gnawed by mice: Rav said: It is not "goodly." Is this so? Did not R. Hanina taste a part of it, and fulfilled his obligation [with the remainder]? But isn't our Mishnah a difficulty against R. Hanina?

It is well that our Mishnah is not a difficulty against R. Hanina since the former might refer to the first day of the Festival, while the latter might refer to the second day; but it is still a difficulty against Rav? Rav could answer you: Mice are different, since they are repulsive

And He causeth to come down for you, etc. (Joel 2.23): Said R. Naḥman to R. Isaac: The former rain does not fall in Nisan, but in Marḥeshwan! For a Baraita reads (Sifrē, Deut., §42): The former rain falls in Marḥeshwan and the latter rain in Nisan! "Thus said R. Johanan," replied R. Isaac, "this verse (Joel, 2.23) has proven true (only) in the days of Joel the son of Petuel, for it is written (Joel, 1.4): 'That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten,' etc. Now there is a tradition that in that year Adar had passed without rainfall, and the first rain did not appear until the first of Nisan. The Prophet then said to the Israelites: Go out and sow! But they replied: Should one who has a Ḳab of wheat or two Ḳabs of barley, eat it and live, or sow it and die? The prophet said: Nevertheless go out and sow! They then went out and sowed. Thereupon a miracle happened, that all the grain which was hidden (by mice) in the walls and in crevices (by ants) and in the holes of ants, appeared before their eyes. Again they went out and sowed on the second, third, and fourth (of Nisan); on the fifth there was the second rainfall and on the sixteenth they offered the 'Omer. Thus, produce that used to ripen in six months ripened in eleven days, and the 'Omer which was usually offered from the crop that grew six months was now offered from one that grew in eleven days! With reference to that generation the Psalmist says (Ps., 126.5-6): 'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Though he goeth on his way weeping, bearing forth the seed; he shall come again with joy, bringing his sheaves with him.'"