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Rabbinic tradition says to not speculate about what can't be understood, not to ask what is above, below, before, or after. This is a modified quotation of Sirach, suggesting Rabbinic tradition used Sirach and adapted it for its own teaching.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Sirach 3:21
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
17 My son, go on with your business in humility; so you will be loved by an acceptable man. 18 The greater you are, humble yourself the more, and you will find favor before the Lord. 20 For the power of the Lord is great, and he is glorified by those who are lowly. 21 Don’t seek things that are too hard for you, and don’t search out things that are above your strength. 22 Think about the things that have been commanded you, for you have no need of the things that are secret. 23 Don’t be overly busy in tasks that are beyond you, for more things are shown to you than men can understand. 24 For the conceit of many has led them astray. Evil opinion has caused their judgment to slip.
Chagigah 13a
Babylonian Talmud
Rabbinic
The Gemara comments: Until here, you have permission to speak; from this point forward you do not have permission to speak, as it is written in the book of Ben Sira: Seek not things concealed from you, nor search those hidden from you. Reflect on that which is permitted to you; you have no business with secret matters. It is taught in a baraita: Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai said: What response did the Divine Voice provide to that wicked man, Nebuchadnezzar, when he said: “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14), thereby intending to rise to heaven? A Divine Voice came and said to him: Wicked man, son of a wicked man, descendant, i.e., follower of the ways, of Nimrod the wicked, who caused the entire world to rebel against Him during the time of his reign.
Date: 450–550 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Crescas, in his criticism of Aristotle, raises the same question of the existence of many worlds, and, though he quotes in discouragement of this kind of speculation Sirach's warning as it is reechoed in the Tannaitic statement against inquiring into 'what is above and what is below, what is before and what is behind,' (Compare M. Hagigah 2:1, and Hagigah 13a, where Sirach 3: 21-22 is quoted) he also quotes in support of the plurality of worlds the same Talmudic statement with regard to God's riding on His swift cherub and roaming over eighteen thousand worlds ..."
Wolfson, Harry Austryn
Philo Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
(p. 197) Harvard University Press, 1962
* 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.
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