Texts in Conversation
The Psalms of Solomon describes God's care by how he feeds birds, fish, the rich, and the poor, using an early form of parable tradition that is later used by Jesus in the New Testament and in Rabbinic tradition, such as Genesis Rabbah.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Psalms of Solomon 5:9
Pseudepigrapha
6 Don't be too demanding of us, lest we sin in desperation. 7 And even if you don't turn us back, we will not keep away, but we will come to you. 8 For if I am hungry, I will cry out to you, O God, and you will give me something. 9 You feed the young birds and the fish, when you send rain to the wilderness that the grass may grow; 10 So to provide pasture in the wilderness; for every living thing; when they are hungry, will turn to you. 11 You feed kings and rulers and their subjects, O God, and who is the hope of the poor and the needy, if not you, O Lord?
Genesis Rabbah 76
Aggadah
Rabbinic
“And he encamped [vayiḥan] before the city” – he graced [ḥanan] the leadership of the city, he began sending them gifts. Another matter, “and he encamped [vayiḥan] before the city” – he began establishing markets and selling at low prices. That is what they say, that a person must show gratitude to a place from which he benefits. Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai and Rabbi Elazar his son were hiding in a cave for thirteen years during the days of persecution. They would eat withered carobs until they broke out in sores. After thirteen years, he [Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai] emerged and sat at the cave entrance. He saw a certain hunter standing and hunting birds. When Rabbi Shimon would hear a Divine Voice from Heaven: ‘Freedom, freedom,’ it would escape. But when he would hear a Divine Voice saying: ‘Killing,’ it would be hunted and trapped. He said: ‘Were it not for Heaven, a bird would not be hunted; the soul of a person, all the more so.’ He went out and found that matters were calm, and that the edict had been abrogated. They came and bathed in that heated bathhouse in Tiberias. His son said to him: ‘Tiberias has afforded us so much benefit, and we are not purifying it from the dead?’ He said: ‘We must perform an act of good just as our ancestors would, as they would establish markets and sell at low prices.’ He said: ‘We need to purify Tiberias.’ What did he do? He took a mandrake. He would cut the mandrake, cast the cuttings, and scatter them in the street. Every place where there was a corpse, it would rise, and they would move it and take it out of the city. And every place where there was no impurity, the mandrake would remain, and it would indicate which was a place of purity and which was a place of impurity until the time that they purified it from all the corpses. A certain Samaritan ignoramus saw him and said: ‘Will I not go and mock this Jewish elder?’ Some say it was in the wicker basket market, and some said it was the sack market. He took a corpse and concealed it in one of the streets that had been purified. In the morning, he went and said to them: ‘You said that ben Yoḥai had purified Tiberias. Come and see this corpse.’ <Variant reading: He went to him, he said to him: ‘Did you not purify such and such street?’ He said to him: ‘Yes.’ He said to him: ‘And if I produce corpses after you?’ He said to him: ‘Pull and show it.’> Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai saw through the Divine spirit that he placed it there. He said: ‘I decree that the one who is above shall descend, and the one who is below shall ascend,’ and so it was. He ascended and sat in his house. He passed by the Tower of Colors and heard the voice of Nakai the scribe. He said: ‘Did you not say that bar Yoḥai purified Tiberias? But they say that they found a corpse.’ He said: ‘Let him come to me, if I do not have at my disposal halakhot as numerous as the hair on my head regarding Tiberias, that it is pure, with the exception of this-and-that place. You were not with us in the quorum when it was purified. You breached the fence of the Sages, and in your regard it is written: “One who breaches a fence, a serpent will bite him”’ (Ecclesiastes 10:8). He [Nakai the scribe] immediately became a pile of bones. He [Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai] passed in the Beit Nekofa Valley. He saw a person standing and gathering the sefichin of the Sabbatical year. He said to him: ‘Is this not the sefichin of the Sabbatical year?’ He said to him: ‘But is it not you who permitted it? Did we not learn: Rabbi Shimon says: All the sefichin are permitted except for the sefichin of cabbage, as there is nothing like it in the vegetables of the field.’ He said to him: ‘But do my colleagues not disagree with me? You breached the fence of the Sages, and “one who breaches a fence, a serpent will bite him.”’ And so it was for him. Another matter, “and he encamped before the city” – he entered on Friday near sunset, while it was still day, and established Shabbat boundaries while it was still day. That is to say: Jacob observed Shabbat before it was given.
Date: 500 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Search:
Notes and References
"... In this saying, as in the corresponding exhortation to consider the wild flowers (Matthew 6:28; Luke 12:27), Jesus adopts the style of a Jewish wisdom teacher, inviting his hearers to consider the natural world, God’s creation, and to draw religious lessons from it (compare Job 12:7–8; 35:4; Proverbs 6:6; Sirach 33:15; 1 Enoch 2:1–3; 3:1; 4:1; 5:1, 3). What he asks them to notice – that God feeds the birds / ravens – is drawn directly from the creation theology of the Hebrew Bible, especially the Psalms, in which it is a commonplace that God the Creator supplies all his living creatures with food ... The Old Testament creation theology, which Jesus here echoes, includes humans among the living creatures for whom God provides. The great creation psalm – 104 – where humans are included among all the creatures who look to God for food (verses 27–8), is notable for its depiction of humans as one species among others in the community of creation for which the Creator provides. Psalm 145:15, which echoes Psalm 104:27–8, does so, as the context makes clear, in order especially to highlight God’s provision for humans. Like Jesus, the psalmist points to God’s care for all his living creatures in order to assure humans who turn to God in need that he provides for them. The same point is made, in dependence on these psalms, in a later Jewish psalm (Psalms of Solomon 5:8-11) ..."
Bauckham, Richard
Living with Other Creatures: Green Exegesis and Theology
(pp. 87-89) Baylor University Press, 2011
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.