שִׁיעוּר תְּרוּעָה כִּשְׁלֹשׁ יְבָבוֹת. וְהָתַנְיָא: שִׁיעוּר תְּרוּעָה כִּשְׁלֹשָׁה שְׁבָרִים!
"The length of a teru'ah sound is equal to three sobbing cries." (Mishnah R. H. 4:9). But it is taught in a baraita: "The length of a teru'ah sound is equal to three broken sighs."
אָמַר אַבָּיֵי... דִּכְתִיב: ״יוֹם תְּרוּעָה יִהְיֶה לָכֶם״, וּמְתַרְגְּמִינַן: ״יוֹם יַבָּבָא יְהֵא לְכוֹן״.
וּכְתִיב בְּאִימֵּיהּ דְּסִיסְרָא: ״בְּעַד הַחַלּוֹן נִשְׁקְפָה וַתְּיַבֵּב אֵם סִיסְרָא״. מָר סָבַר גַּנּוֹחֵי גַּנַּח. וּמָר סָבַר יַלּוֹלֵי יַלֵּיל.
Abaye said: ....As it is written, "It [the first of day of the seventh month] shall be a day of teru'ah for you" (Numbers 29:1). And the Aramaic translation [of that verse] is, "It shall be a day of yebava to you." [But what does yebava mean exactly? It's from a very rare root in Hebrew.]
Now, about Sisera's mother it is written, "Sisera's mother looked out through her window vateyabev [using the same verb root as above, appearing only once in Tanakh]" (Judges 5:28). One Tanna thinks [the verb י–ב–ב in Judges means] to be deeply sighing. And the other Tanna thinks, to be heavily sobbing.
In this period, the Torah used to be read in Hebrew and was then translated, verse by verse, into Aramaic, the common language of most Jews at the time. The standard Aramaic translation was also used to help interpret and explain the Torah.
"Sisera" was a Canaanite general who led a losing battle against the Israelites in the early days of the "Judges," before there was an Israelite king. Sisera tried to escape when his army was routed, but ended up getting killed by a woman named Yael. The Israelites recite a poem in Judges 5, celebrating their victory, which describes Sisera's mother waiting anxiously for her son to come home from the battle.**