Hyperbole in the Bible and the Mishnah According to the Talmud - Six Sequential Examples (Tamid 29a-b)
Hyperbole [...] is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech [...] As a figure of speech, it is usually not meant to be taken literally [...] For hyperbole to be effective it needs to be obvious, deliberate, and outlandish.
Hyperbole is a major element of the Talmud, especially in the later strata. The Talmud itself discusses this literary style in the Bible and the Mishnah, calling it guzma or havai (הבאי).1
Interestingly, three out of four of the instances of hyperbole in the Mishnah pointed out by the Talmud use the number 300. Two of these are the amount of priests needed to lift something in the Temple (the vine, or the curtain).
Technical
I made slight adjustments to the ed. Steinzaltz translation and explanation. Especially, changing the format of the numbers from words to numerals, for ease of reading. I highlighted the exaggerations in the headers using this style of brackets: <<>>.
Source
Talmud Bavli, Tamid.29a.6-29b.3 (see my below footnote for a technical point regarding the pagination of the Talmud in tractate Tamid).2
Outline
Examples from Mishnah
“<<300 kor>> of ashes upon the circular heap in the middle of the altar” (Mishnah, Tamid 2:2)
“the priests gave the lamb selected for the daily offering water to drink in a <<cup of gold>>” (Mishnah, Tamid 3:4)
Examples from the Bible
“cities great and fortified <<up to heaven>>” (Torah, Deuteronomy 9:1)
“<<the earth split>> with the sound of them” (Prophets, I Kings 1:40)
Additional Examples from the Mishnah
“ There was once an incident and <<300 priests>> were enlisted to lift the vine in order to move [the gold ornament in the form of a vine that stood at the entrance to the Sanctuary of the Temple]” (Mishnah, Middot 3:8)
“ the Curtain was so heavy that when it was immersed <<300 priests>> would immerse it” (Mishnah, Shekalim 8:5)
Examples from Mishnah
“<<300 kor>> of ashes upon the circular heap in the middle of the altar” (Mishnah, Tamid 2:2)
אמר רבא: גוזמא.
The mishna teaches that sometimes there was as much as 300 kor of ashes upon the circular heap in the middle of the altar. Rava said: This is an exaggeration. The mishna merely means that the heap contained a large quantity of ashes, not that it reached that actual amount.
“the priests gave the lamb selected for the daily offering water to drink in a <<cup of gold>>” (Mishnah, Tamid 3:4)
השקו את התמיד בכוס של זהב,
אמר רבא: גוזמא.
Similarly, the mishna states (30a) that before slaughtering the daily offering the priests gave the lamb selected for the daily offering water to drink in cup of gold, so that it would be easier to flay it after it was slaughtered.
With regard to this mishna, Rava said: This is an exaggeration, as the priests would not give the animal to drink from an actual golden vessel.
Examples from the Bible
אמר רבי אמי: דברה תורה לשון הבאי, דברו נביאים לשון הבאי, דברו חכמים לשון הבאי.
In this connection, Rabbi Ami says: In certain instances, the Torah spoke employing exaggerated [havai] language, the prophets spoke employing exaggerated language, and the Sages spoke employing exaggerated language.
“cities great and fortified <<up to heaven>>” (Torah, Deuteronomy 9:1)
דברה תורה לשון הבאי –
דכתיב: ״ערים גדלת ובצורת בשמים״,
בשמים סלקא דעתך?!
אלא גוזמא [...]
The Gemara cites examples for this statement: The Torah spoke employing exaggerated language,
as it is written: “Hear, Israel: You are passing over the Jordan this day, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven” (Deuteronomy 9:1).
Does it enter your mind to say that the cities were literally fortified up to heaven?
Rather, this is an exaggeration.
[...]
“<<the earth split>> with the sound of them” (Prophets, I Kings 1:40)
דברו נביאים לשון הבאי –
דכתיב: ״(וכל עם הארץ) מחללים בחללים וגו׳ ותבקע הארץ לקולם״.
The prophets spoke employing exaggerated language,
as it is written with regard to the coronation of King Solomon: “And all the people of the land came up after him, and the people piped with pipes, and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them” (I Kings 1:40). The verse merely means that the sound was very great, not that it actually caused the earth to split.
Additional Examples from the Mishnah
“ There was once an incident and <<300 priests>> were enlisted to lift the vine in order to move [the gold ornament in the form of a vine that stood at the entrance to the Sanctuary of the Temple]” (Mishnah, Middot 3:8)
אמר רבי ינאי בר נחמני, אמר שמואל: בשלשה מקומות דברו חכמים בלשון הבאי, ואלו הן: תפוח, גפן, ופרכת.
[...]
תפוח – הא דאמרן.
גפן – דתניא: גפן זהב היתה עומדת על פתח ההיכל, ומודלה על גבי כלונסות, וכל מי שמתנדב עלה או גרגיר, או אשכול – מביא ותולה בה.
אמר רבי אלעזר ברבי צדוק: מעשה היה, ונמנו עליה שלש מאות כהנים לפנותה.
Rabbi Yannai bar Naḥmani says that Shmuel says: In three instances, the Sages spoke in exaggerated language, and these are those instances: With regard to the circular heap of ashes on the altar, with regard to the vine, and with regard to the Curtain that separated the Sanctuary and the Holy of Holies, as explained below.
[...]
The Gemara details the three instances with regard to which Shmuel states that the Sages employed exaggerated language: The case of the circular heap of ashes is that which we stated above.
The case of the vine is as it is taught in a mishna (Middot 3:8): A gold ornament in the form of a vine stood at the entrance to the Sanctuary, and it hung upon posts. And whoever would donate an ornamental gold leaf, or grape, or cluster of grapes, would bring it to the Temple and a priest would hang it on the vine.
Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Tzadok, said: There was once an incident and three hundred priests were enlisted to lift the vine in order to move it, due to its immense weight. This description is an exaggeration, as although the vine was extremely heavy, it did not require three hundred priests to lift it.
“ the Curtain was so heavy that when it was immersed <<300 priests>> would immerse it” (Mishnah, Shekalim 8:5)
[E.B. - The numbering is mine]
פרוכת –
דתנן רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר משום רבי שמעון הסגן:
פרוכת:
עביה טפח,
על שבעים ושנים נימין נארגת,
ועל כל נימה ונימה עשרים וארבעה חוטין.
ארכה ארבעים אמה,
ורחבה עשרים אמה.
ומשמונים ושתים ריבוא נעשית,
ושתים עושין בכל שנה ושנה,
ושלש מאות כהנים מטבילין אותה.
With regard to Shmuel’s statement that the Sages exaggerated with regard to the weight of the Curtain,
it is as we learned in a mishna (Shekalim 21b) that Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says in the name of Rabbi Shimon the deputy High Priest:
With regard to the Curtain:
its thickness is one handbreadth.
It is woven from 72 strands of yarn,
and each and every strand of those 72 strands is made from 24 threads. The Curtain is fashioned from 4 materials: Sky-blue wool, purple wool, scarlet wool, and fine linen, and every strand comprises 6 threads of each material.
Its length is 40 cubits, corresponding to the height of the entrance to the Sanctuary,
and its width is 20 cubits, matching the width of the entrance.
And it is made at the cost of 820,000 gold dinars,
and 2 new Curtains are made each and every year.
And the Curtain was so heavy that when it was immersed 300 priests would immerse it.
See also my discussion in my piece in Academia.edu on stories of deception in the Talmud, where I cite some previous scholarship on hyperbole in the Talmud:
חנן גפני, "דיברו חכמים בלשון הבאי?",
JSIJ (2009), pp. 153-166
(תשס"ז) יהודה ברנדס, "גוזמות ומליצות" , טללי אורות כרך יג
And see the Sefaria source sheet by Olivia Devorah Tucker, ”Notable Numbers”.
On explicit numberings of lists in Talmudic literature, see Shamir Yona,"Numerical Sayings in the Literatures of the Ancient Near East, in the Bible, in the Book of Ben-Sira and in Rabbinic Literature", Review of Rabbinic Judaism 19 (2016), pp. 216-243.
On p. 216 he writes:
“In Rabbinic literature we find multiple uses of numbers. In some cases the uses will be identical to the biblical uses, vis-à-vis different use as a mnemonic editing device as we will show later on.”
As an aside, on the length and pagination of the Talmud in tractate Talmid, in the Wikipedia entry on the tractate:
The extant gemara on Tamid in the Babylonian Talmud covers only three chapters of the tractate (chapters 1, 2, and 4). It is the shortest tractate of gemara in the Babylonian Talmud consisting of only seven pages.
And see the Hebrew version of the entry (my translation):
This tractate is the shortest of the tractates on which there is Babylonian Talmud (Talmud and Mishnah pages together total 8 pages), and for this reason, it was added in print editions to the tractate of Meilah. As a result, the tractate does not start on folio 2 but on folio 25 and ends on folio 32. From folio 32 to folio 33, the last three chapters of the tractate, which contain only Mishnah, were added.