Bereishit Rabba 54 Supplementary Texts Use With https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/643626.2

(22) At that time Abimelech and Phicol, chief of his troops, said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything that you do.

(22) At that time Abimelech and Phicol, chief of his troops, said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything that you do. (23) Therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my kith and kin, but will deal with me and with the land in which you have sojourned as loyally as I have dealt with you.” (24) And Abraham said, “I swear it.” (25) Then Abraham reproached Abimelech for the well of water which the servants of Abimelech had seized.

(7) When the LORD is pleased with a man’s conduct, He may turn even his enemies into allies.

(10) All my bones shall say, “LORD, who is like You? You save the poor from one stronger than he, the poor and needy from his despoiler.”

(21) If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; If he is thirsty, give him water to drink.

(4) “Let the simple enter here”; To those devoid of sense she says,

(1) Ho, all who are thirsty, Come for water, Even if you have no money; Come, buy food and eat: Buy food without money, Wine and milk without cost.

(11) I summoned that swooping bird from the East; From a distant land, the man for My purpose. I have spoken, so I will bring it to pass; I have designed it, so I will complete it.

(12) But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed over the boy or your slave; whatever Sarah tells you, do as she says, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be continued for you.

(23) Therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my kith and kin, but will deal with me and with the land in which you have sojourned as loyally as I have dealt with you.”

Brothers who are partners can each protest against their fellow that he will not buy anything for himself from the partnership if he does not deduct it from his share, and if they do not protest and buy for themselves when they come to divide the clothes they have according to what they are worth at the time of division, but if they are completely worn out or lost, they do not count them as theirs. And if they bought clothes for their wives, sons, and daughters, they do not count them in the D.A. In weekday clothes, but in Sabbath clothes, they count them. And the older brother is also in what he bought for himself, he does not count them, but initially they can protest against him that he will not buy. This is the same as for the other partners who are not brothers (Tur and the like of the Rambam). Who is the above-mentioned Daslinan according to the custom:

(20) for my mortal enemies are numerous; my treacherous foes are many.

(17) Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although it was nearer; for God said, “The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.” (18) So God led the people round about, by way of the wilderness at the Sea of Reeds. Now the Israelites went up armed out of the land of Egypt.

(20) When a slave-owning party strikes a slave, male or female, with a rod, who dies there and then, this must be avenged. (21) But if the victim survives a day or two, this is not to be avenged, since the one is the other’s property. (22) When [two or more] parties fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman’s husband may exact, the payment to be based on reckoning. (23) But if other damage ensues, the penalty shall be life for life,

(15) And Abimelech said, “Here, my land is before you; settle wherever you please.”

(24) And Abraham said, “I swear it.”

(25) Then Abraham reproached Abimelech for the well of water which the servants of Abimelech had seized.

(17) You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kin but incur no guilt on their account. (18) You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against members of your people. Love your fellow [Israelite] as yourself: I am יקוק.

(25) The citizens of Shechem planted ambuscades against him on the hilltops; and they robbed whoever passed by them on the road. Word of this reached Abimelech.

(13) You say, “Oh, what a bother!” And so you degrade it—said GOD of Hosts—and you bring the stolen, the lame, and the sick; and you offer such as an oblation. Will I accept it from you?—said GOD.

(28) Abraham then set seven ewes of the flock by themselves, (29) and Abimelech said to Abraham, “What mean these seven ewes which you have set apart?”

(3) This man used to go up from his town every year to worship and to offer sacrifice to the LORD of Hosts at Shiloh.—Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the LORD there.

(12) Now Eli’s sons were scoundrels; they paid no heed to the LORD. (13) This is how the priests used to deal with the people: When anyone brought a sacrifice, the priest’s boy would come along with a three-pronged fork while the meat was boiling, (14) and he would thrust it into the cauldron, or the kettle, or the great pot, or the small cooking-pot; and whatever the fork brought up, the priest would take away on it. This was the practice at Shiloh with all the Israelites who came there. (15) [But now] even before the suet was turned into smoke, the priest’s boy would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, “Hand over some meat to roast for the priest; for he won’t accept boiled meat from you, only raw.” (16) And if the man said to him, “Let them first turn the suet into smoke, and then take as much as you want,” he would reply, “No, hand it over at once or I’ll take it by force.” (17) The sin of the young men against the LORD was very great, for the men treated the LORD’s offerings impiously.

(1) and Samuel’s word went forth to all Israel. Israel marched out to engage the Philistines in battle; they encamped near Eben-ezer, while the Philistines encamped at Aphek. (2) The Philistines arrayed themselves against Israel; and when the battle was fought, Israel was routed by the Philistines, who slew about four thousand men on the field of battle. (3) When the [Israelite] troops returned to the camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the LORD put us to rout today before the Philistines? Let us fetch the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD from Shiloh; thus He will be present among us and will deliver us from the hands of our enemies.” (4) So the troops sent men to Shiloh; there Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were in charge of the Ark of the Covenant of God, and they brought down from there the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD of Hosts Enthroned on the Cherubim. (5) When the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD entered the camp, all Israel burst into a great shout, so that the earth resounded. (6) The Philistines heard the noise of the shouting and they wondered, “Why is there such a loud shouting in the camp of the Hebrews?” And when they learned that the Ark of the LORD had come to the camp, (7) the Philistines were frightened; for they said, “God has come to the camp.” And they cried, “Woe to us! Nothing like this has ever happened before. (8) Woe to us! Who will save us from the power of this mighty God? He is the same God who struck the Egyptians with every kind of plague in the wilderness! (9) Brace yourselves and be men, O Philistines! Or you will become slaves to the Hebrews as they were slaves to you. Be men and fight!” (10) The Philistines fought; Israel was routed, and they all fled to their homes. The defeat was very great, thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell there. (11) The Ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain. (12) A Benjaminite ran from the battlefield and reached Shiloh the same day; his clothes were rent and there was earth on his head. (13) When he arrived, he found Eli sitting on a seat, waiting beside the road—his heart trembling for the Ark of God. The man entered the city to spread the news, and the whole city broke out in a cry. (14) And when Eli heard the sound of the outcry and asked, “What is the meaning of this uproar?” the man rushed over to tell Eli. (15) Now Eli was ninety-eight years old; his eyes were fixed in a blind stare. (16) The man said to Eli, “I am the one who came from the battlefield; I have just fled from the battlefield.” [Eli] asked, “What happened, my son?” (17) The bearer of the news replied, “Israel fled before the Philistines and the troops also suffered a great slaughter. Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the Ark of God has been captured.” (18) When he mentioned the Ark of God, [Eli] fell backward off the seat beside the gate, broke his neck and died; for he was an old man and heavy. He had been a chieftain of Israel for forty years. (19) His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was with child, about to give birth. When she heard the report that the Ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she was seized with labor pains, and she crouched down and gave birth. (20) As she lay dying, the women attending her said, “Do not be afraid, for you have borne a son.” But she did not respond or pay heed. (21) She named the boy Ichabod, meaning, “The glory has departed from Israel”—referring to the capture of the Ark of God and to [the death of] her father-in-law and her husband. (22) “The glory is gone from Israel,” she said, “for the Ark of God has been captured.”

(29) for the Tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offerings, were at that time in the shrine at Gibeon,

(58) They vexed Him with their high places; they incensed Him with their idols. (59) God heard it and was enraged; He utterly rejected Israel. (60) He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had set among men. (61) He let His might go into captivity, His glory into the hands of the foe. (62) He gave His people over to the sword; He was enraged at His very own.

(1) The Ark of the LORD remained in the territory of the Philistines seven months. (2) Then the Philistines summoned the priests and the diviners and asked, “What shall we do about the Ark of the Lord? Tell us with what we shall send it off to its own place.”

(2) Make sacral vestments for your brother Aaron, for dignity and adornment.

(1) The Ark of the LORD remained in the territory of the Philistines seven months. (2) Then the Philistines summoned the priests and the diviners and asked, “What shall we do about the Ark of the Lord? Tell us with what we shall send it off to its own place.” (3) They answered, “If you are going to send the Ark of the God of Israel away, do not send it away without anything; you must also pay an indemnity to Him. Then you will be healed, and He will make Himself known to you; otherwise His hand will not turn away from you.” (4) They asked, “What is the indemnity that we should pay to Him?” They answered, “Five golden hemorrhoids and five golden mice, corresponding to the number of lords of the Philistines; for the same plague struck all of you and your lords. (5) You shall make figures of your hemorrhoids and of the mice that are ravaging your land; thus you shall honor the God of Israel, and perhaps He will lighten the weight of His hand upon you and your gods and your land. (6) Don’t harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts. As you know, when He made a mockery of them, they had to let Israel go, and they departed. (7) Therefore, get a new cart ready and two milch cows that have not borne a yoke; harness the cows to the cart, but take back indoors the calves that follow them. (8) Take the Ark of the LORD and place it on the cart; and put next to it in a chest the gold objects you are paying Him as indemnity. Send it off, and let it go its own way. (9) Then watch: If it goes up the road to Beth-shemesh, to His own territory, it was He who has inflicted this great harm on us. But if not, we shall know that it was not His hand that struck us; it just happened to us by chance.” (10) The men did so. They took two milch cows and harnessed them to the cart, and shut up their calves indoors. (11) They placed the Ark of the LORD on the cart together with the chest, the golden mice, and the figures of their hemorrhoids. (12) The cows went straight ahead along the road to Beth-shemesh. They went along a single highroad, lowing as they went, and turning off neither to the right nor to the left; and the lords of the Philistines walked behind them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh. (13) The people of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley. They looked up and saw the Ark, and they rejoiced when they saw [it]. (14) The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and it stopped there. They split up the wood of the cart and presented the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD. A large stone was there; (15) and the Levites took down the Ark of the LORD and the chest beside it containing the gold objects and placed them on the large stone. Then the men of Beth-shemesh presented burnt offerings and other sacrifices to the LORD that day. (16) The five lords of the Philistines saw this and returned the same day to Ekron. (17) The following were the golden hemorrhoids that the Philistines paid as an indemnity to the LORD: For Ashdod, one; for Gaza, one; for Ashkelon, one; for Gath, one; for Ekron, one. (18) As for the golden mice, their number accorded with all the Philistine towns that belonged to the five lords—both fortified towns and unwalled villages, as far as the great stone on which the Ark of the LORD was set down, to this day, in the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh. (19) [The LORD] struck at the men of Beth-shemesh because they looked into the Ark of the LORD; He struck down seventy men among the people [and] fifty thousand men. The people mourned, for He had inflicted a great slaughter upon the population.

§ When the Philistines returned the Ark during the period of Samuel, it is stated: “And He smote of the men of Beit Shemesh because they had gazed upon the Ark of the Lord” (I Samuel 6:19). The Gemara asks: Because they gazed upon it, God smote them? Why did their action warrant this punishment? Rabbi Abbahu and Rabbi Elazar disagreed with regard to the interpretation of the verse. One says that they were punished because they were reaping their crops and prostrating themselves at the same time; they did not stop working in reverence for the Ark. And one says that they also spoke denigrating words:

Set on a straight course. This word is a hermaphrodite. This teaches us that even the young recited a song, "Sing aloud, sing aloud, O Ark of acacia wood! Exalt yourself…" as stated in Maseches Avodah Zorah. According to its simple meaning, 'וַיִשַּׁרְנָה' is an expression meaning 'straight,' i.e. they followed a straight path.

(1) Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to יקוק. They said: I will sing to יקוק, for He has triumphed gloriously; Horse and driver He has hurled into the sea.

(1) A psalm. Sing to the LORD a new song, for He has worked wonders; His right hand, His holy arm, has won Him victory.

(1) Sing to the LORD a new song, sing to the LORD, all the earth.

(1) The LORD, enthroned on cherubim, is king, peoples tremble, the earth quakes.

(26) But Abimelech said, “I do not know who did this; you did not tell me, nor have I heard of it until today.” (27) Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a pact. (28) Abraham then set seven ewes of the flock by themselves, (29) and Abimelech said to Abraham, “What mean these seven ewes which you have set apart?” (30) He replied, “You are to accept these seven ewes from me as proof that I dug this well.” (31) Hence that place was called Beer-sheba, for there the two of them swore an oath. (32) When they had concluded the pact at Beer-sheba, Abimelech and Phicol, chief of his troops, departed and returned to the land of the Philistines.

“She went down to the spring, she filled her jug, and came up” – all the women were going down and drawing water from the spring, but this one, when the water saw her it immediately rose up [towards her]. The Holy One blessed be He said to her: ‘You are a precursor for your descendants; just as you, when the water saw you it immediately rose up, so, too, your descendants, when the well will see them, it will immediately rise up.’ That is what is written: “Then Israel sang this song: Rise up, well; give voice for it” (Numbers 21:17).

(10) The Israelites marched on and encamped at Oboth. (11) They set out from Oboth and encamped at Iye-abarim, in the wilderness bordering on Moab to the east. (12) From there they set out and encamped at the wadi Zered. (13) From there they set out and encamped beyond the Arnon, that is, in the wilderness that extends from the territory of the Amorites. For the Arnon is the boundary of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites. (14) Therefore the Book of the Wars of יקוק speaks of “…Waheb in Suphah, and the wadis: the Arnon (15) with its tributary wadis, stretched along the settled country of Ar, hugging the territory of Moab…” (16) And from there to Beer, which is the well where יקוק said to Moses, “Assemble the people that I may give them water.” (17) Then Israel sang this song: Spring up, O well—sing to it— (18) The well which the chieftains dug, Which the nobles of the people started With maces, with their own staffs. And from Midbar to Mattanah, (19) and from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth, (20) and from Bamoth to the valley that is in the country of Moab, at the peak of Pisgah, overlooking the wasteland. (21) Israel now sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying,

(33) [Abraham] planted a tamarisk at Beer-sheba, and invoked there the name of יקוק, the Everlasting God.

(1)And he planted a vineyard (Gen. 9:20). Noah was one of four men who introduced four things. Noah introduced planting, as it is written: And he planted a vineyard; cursing when he said: Cursed be Canaan (Gen. 9:25); slavery when he said: He shall be slave unto his brothers (ibid.); and drunkenness when he drank of the wine, and was drunken (ibid., v. 21).

(2) Abraham introduced old age, trials, hospitality, and legacies. He introduced old age, for whenever he and his son entered a city, the inhabitants were unable to determine which of them was the elder of the two (and therefore the one) to be honored. Abraham was disturbed by this, and so he said: Master of the Universe, how shall one distinguish between father and son? The Holy One, blessed be He, replied: Be assured, I will begin with you (to distinguish between father and son), as it is said: Abraham was old (Gen. 24:1).

(3) Trials. Abraham said to the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, if You had made the generation of the flood feel secure, they would not have angered You or rebelled against You by saying: Depart from us (Job 21:14). Thereupon, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: I shall begin with you (to try men). And He tried him through his son (who was to be offered as a sacrifice), as it is written: And the child grew, and was weaned, etc. (Gen. 21:8).

(4) R. Oshaya and R. Abin differed over the meaning of this verse. One said: He was weaned from his good inclination; while the other insisted: He was weaned from his evil inclination.

(5) Hospitality. For it is said: And he planted a tamarisk tree (ibid., v. 33). R. Nehemiah stated: “Tamarisk tree” (alef-shin-lamed) contains the same letters as the word “ask” (shin-alef-lamed). Whenever a man approached him, Abraham would say: “Ask what you desire, and I will give it to you.” And he built an inn at the crossroads.

(6) Legacies. As it is said: Unto the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts (Gen. 25:6).

(7) Moses introduced priestcraft, priesthood, sacrifice, and the law. He introduced priestcraft when he officiated as priest for seven days during the inauguration (of the priesthood); priesthood when He appointed Elazar the son of Aaron to the office of priest in the Temple, as it is said: And the chief over the princes of the Levites was Elazar the son of Aaron the priest (Num. 3:32); sacrifice, for it is said: And Moses made the whole head ram smoke upon the altar; it was a burnt offering (Lev. 8:20); and law, for it is written: And I will give to thee the tablets of stone and the law and the commandments (Exod. 24:12). Balaam instituted gambling, plaiting the hair, sorcery, and unchastity. Hence, Noah was one of four men who introduced four things.

(6) When Saul heard that David and the men with him had been located—Saul was then in Gibeah, sitting under the tamarisk tree on the height, spear in hand, with all his courtiers in attendance upon him— (7) Saul said to the courtiers standing about him, “Listen, men of Benjamin! Will the son of Jesse give fields and vineyards to every one of you? And will he make all of you captains of thousands or captains of hundreds? (8) Is that why all of you have conspired against me? For no one informs me when my own son makes a pact with the son of Jesse; no one is concerned for me and no one informs me when my own son has set my servant in ambush against me, as is now the case.”

(33) [Abraham] planted a tamarisk at Beer-sheba, and invoked there the name of יקוק, the Everlasting God. (34) And Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines a long time.