Pt1 The Destructions of the First Temple, Second Temple, and Betar in the Talmud Yerushalmi (Taanit 4:5)

This is the first part of a four-part series. The outline of the series is below.¹

Intro

Part 1

This sugya is a destruction narrative centered on the destructions of the First Temple (587 BCE), the Second Temple (70 CE), and Betar (136 CE). It begins with the Mishnah’s terse statement that “Betar was taken” was one of the major tragic events that occurred on the 9th of Av, and expands it into a long sequence of homilies, historical memories, casualty traditions, moral explanations, and scriptural interpretations. The passage implicitly treats Betar as the final great catastrophe after the destruction of the Second Temple. Its fall becomes the point at which messianic hope, military confidence, rabbinic authority, Roman violence, and divine judgment all converge.

The opening frame presents two major 3rd-century rabbinic figures, R’ Yehuda HaNasi and R’ Yoḥanan, as preachers on Lamentations 2:2: “He swallowed and showed no mercy.” R’ Yehuda HaNasi is said to have expounded twenty-four stories (עובדין) on that verse, while R’ Yoḥanan expounded sixty. The sugya explains that R’ Yehuda HaNasi did not know fewer stories than R’ Yoḥanan; rather, he lived closer to the destruction (of the Second Temple and Betar), and elderly men who still remembered would cry during his sermons and silence him. The sugya thus begins by defining Betar as a living memory, remembered by survivors whose grief interrupts interpretation.

The sugya then links Betar to the biblical conflict between Jacob and Esau. R’ Yehuda b. Illai cites his teacher Baruch, who interpreted Genesis 27:22, “the voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are Esau’s hands,” as a description of Betar: Jacob’s voice cries out because of what Esau’s hands did there. This places Rome, identified with Esau, in the role of the violent executor of Israel’s suffering. The fall of Betar is thus presented as part of a larger biblical pattern of Jacob suffering under Esau’s hands.

The next unit turns to Bar Koziba (=Shimon bar Kokhba). R’ Shimon b. Yoḥai reports that R’ Akiva interpreted Numbers 24:17, “a star has gone forth from Jacob,” as “Koziba has gone forth from Jacob.” This wordplay underlies R’ Akiva’s identification of Bar Koziba as the messianic king. The sugya then gives the famous exchange between R’ Akiva and R’ Yoḥanan b. Torta. R’ Akiva sees Bar Koziba and says, “This is King Messiah.” R’ Yoḥanan b. Torta rejects this sharply, telling R’ Akiva that grass will grow from his jaws and “the son of David” (=Messiah) will still not have come. The sugya thus preserves a dispute over Bar Koziba’s messianic status; placing it at the center of the Betar story, while also placing beside it a dissenting rabbinic voice that refuses the identification.

Part 2

The military portrait of Bar Koziba is highly exaggerated and heroic in scale. R’ Yoḥanan speaks of Hadrian’s voice killing eighty thousand myriads at Betar, and of eighty thousand pairs of (Roman) horn-blowers encircling the city, each commanding multiple military units. Bar Koziba is said to have had two hundred thousand soldiers with a severed finger. When the rabbis objected that he was turning Israelites into physically defective persons, he replaced the test with another impossible standard: only a rider who could uproot a cedar of Lebanon while on horseback could be enrolled in his army. The result is another two hundred thousand soldiers of that type. The numbers are hyperbolic, serving to magnify Betar as a vast center of Jewish military strength and Bar Koziba as an extraordinary commander.

At the same time, the sugya undercuts Bar Koziba’s strength through his religious posture. Before battle he says to God: “Do not support and do not hinder,” citing Psalms 60:12, “Have You not rejected us, O God, and do not go out with our armies.” This prayer is a demand that God stay out of the battle. The same formula later appears in the story of two brothers in Kefar Ḥariba, who also reject divine help before fighting Rome. This repetition makes the formula a theological marker. Military strength without dependence on God becomes part of the explanation for defeat.

The central narrative mechanism of Betar’s fall is the death of R’ Elazar of Modiin. During Hadrian’s three-and-a-half-year siege of Betar,² R’ Elazar sits in sackcloth and ashes and prays every day that God not sit in judgment that day. His prayer sustains the city by delaying judgment. Hadrian is ready to abandon the siege, but a Samaritan intervenes and claims he can cause the city to surrender. He enters Betar, finds R’ Elazar praying, pretends to whisper in his ear, and allows himself to be seen. The townspeople bring him to Bar Koziba and report suspicious contact with R’ Elazar. The Samaritan then frames R’ Elazar as a traitor, claiming that R’ Elazar promised to surrender the city to Hadrian.

Bar Koziba interrogates R’ Elazar, who says that nothing was said to him and that he said nothing in return. Bar Koziba then kicks him and kills him. A bat kol immediately applies Zechariah 11:17 to Bar Koziba: “Woe, worthless shepherd, who abandons the flock; a sword upon his arm and upon his right eye.” The bat kol (or the Talmud) explains the verse: R’ Elazar was the arm and right eye of Israel; because Bar Koziba killed him, Bar Koziba’s own arm and right eye will be struck. Immediately Betar is taken and Bar Koziba is killed. In this structure, Betar falls because its leader kills the righteous figure whose prayer was holding off divine judgment.

The account of Bar Koziba’s death continues with Hadrian. His head is brought to the emperor. A Samaritan claims to have killed him. Hadrian asks to see the body, finds a poisonous snake wrapped around it, and declares that only God could have killed him, citing Deuteronomy 32:30: “Had not their Rock sold them, and YHWH delivered them.” This is a significant reversal: the Roman emperor, enemy of Israel, recognizes divine agency in Bar Koziba’s death. The sugya places theological interpretation even in the mouth of Hadrian: Bar Koziba was in fact handed over by God.

The massacre traditions that follow describe Betar’s destruction in extreme terms. Blood reaches a horse’s nose, moves large stones, and flows toward the sea despite Betar being forty mil [=Roman miles] away. Three hundred children’s brains are found on one stone. Boxes of tefillin capsules are found in enormous quantities. Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel says Betar had five hundred schools, the smallest with at least five hundred children. The children imagine fighting the enemy with their styluses, but instead they are wrapped in their books and burned. Of all those children, Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel says, only he survived, applying Lamentations 3:51 to himself. These images present Betar as a city of Torah learning and children; its destruction is therefore both martial and cultural.

The sugya then explains the institution of the blessing “Who is good and does good.” Hadrian is said to have fenced an eighteen-by-eighteen-mil vineyard with the corpses of Betar’s dead and left them unburied. Only a later emperor allowed burial. Rav Ḥuna states that when the slain of Betar were finally permitted burial, the blessing was established: “good” because the bodies did not decompose, and “does good” because they were allowed to be buried. This gives a liturgical afterlife to the Betar catastrophe; a regular blessing in rabbinic practice is attached to the delayed burial of Betar’s dead.

Part 3

R’ Yose states that Betar lasted fifty-two years after the destruction of the Second Temple (which occurred in 70 CE). The sugya then asks for the divine reason as to why Betar was destroyed. The sugya explains that it was destroyed because its people lit lamps after the Second Temple’s destruction, rejoicing over Jerusalem’s fall. This explanation shifts blame inward, from Rome to Jewish social and moral failure. It expands into a story about late-Second Temple Jerusalem’s councilors, who exploited pilgrims or travelers by forging property-sale documents and using them to dispossess people. Victims cursed the day they came to Jerusalem. Lamentations 4:18, “They hunted our steps,” is interpreted as obstruction of access to Jerusalem and as the approaching end of the Temple. Those who rejoiced in Jerusalem’s disaster are then condemned with Proverbs 17:5: one who rejoices at calamity will not go unpunished. Betar’s punishment is thus connected to schadenfreude over Jerusalem and to corrupt conduct within Jerusalem itself.

After Betar, the sugya broadens into a catalogue of destroyed Judean settlements, lost abundance, and vanished populations. The two brothers in Kefar Ḥariba repeat Bar Koziba’s refusal of divine assistance. Two cedars on the Mount of Olives are said to have supported major Temple-related commerce: purity shops under one, and a monthly supply of bird offerings from the other. Mount Shimon produces vast quantities of fig products, but is destroyed either because of prostitution or because people played ball. King’s Mountain has ten thousand towns, of which R’ Elazar b. Ḥarsom owns one thousand, along with one thousand ships, and all are destroyed. The towns of Kabul, Shiḥin, and Magdala of the Dyers supply Jerusalem and are destroyed for quarrel, sorcery, and prostitution. These units create a map of lost prosperity; Eretz Yisrael before catastrophe is portrayed as densely populated, economically specialized, and religiously integrated with Jerusalem and the Temple.

The sugya repeatedly uses large numbers: eighty thousand, sixty thousand, five hundred schools, ten thousand towns, eighty shops, eighty pairs of priestly siblings, eighty-five thousand young priests. The numbers create a rhetoric of scale. Everything is multiplied: armies, schools, children, towns, shops, priests, birds, fish, locusts. The literary effect is to make destruction feel total by first imagining abundance as nearly immeasurable, thus highlighting the massive catastrophe of the destruction in 70 CE.

The later sections move from the Second Temple and Betar back to the First Temple destruction. R’ Yoḥanan states that eighty thousand young priests were killed over the blood of Zechariah. R’ Yudan asks R’ Aḥa where Zechariah was killed; the answer is the priests’ courtyard. Israel committed seven sins that day: killing a priest, prophet, and judge; spilling innocent blood; defiling the courtyard; and doing so on Shabbat and Yom Kippur. Zechariah’s blood was left uncovered, interpreted through Leviticus and Ezekiel. When Nebuzaraddan arrives at the time of the First Temple destruction, he finds the blood bubbling. The people first claim it is sacrificial blood, but after the explanation fails, they confess. Nebuzaraddan slaughters eighty thousand young priests over the blood, but it continues bubbling. He then rebukes God, asking whether God wants to destroy His entire people. Divine mercy is aroused precisely by the compassion of a cruel human being, and the blood is absorbed. The structure resembles the Betar story: a death within Israel creates a standing claim of blood, which results in mass destruction until divine mercy intervenes.

Part 4

Additional R’ Yoḥanan traditions describe eighty thousand young priests fleeing into the Temple’s chambers and being burned, with only Joshua b. Yehozadak surviving, and another eighty thousand fleeing to Nebuchadnezzar’s troops and then to Ishmaelites, who kill them through deceit. Isaiah’s “massa be-Arav” is interpreted as a prophecy about Israelite refugees among Arabs, and their suffering is linked to failure to observe Sabbatical years, Sabbath, and Torah study. Here again, exile is explained through both enemy cruelty and Israel’s religious failures.

The sugya closes by returning to the geography of devastation and survival. R’ Yoḥanan says that from Geva to Antipatris there were sixty thousand towns, the smallest being Bet Shemesh. R’ Ḥanina explains the density by saying that the Land of Israel contracted miraculously. R’ Ze’ira says the land is “insolent” for still producing fruit after such destruction. The land’s fruitfulness is explained either by fertilization or by turning over the soil, and an anecdote from the valley of Arbel describes burning soil uncovered while sowing. R’ Yose says that for fifty-two years no bird flew in Eretz Yisrael, citing Jeremiah 9:9. Other traditions describe date palms planted in Babylonia before the exile, kosher fish, locusts, and birds going into exile with Israel, and the shibuta fish alone failing to return. The natural world participates in the Jews’ exile and return.

The final units mention Palmyra and [Tineius] Rufus. R’ Yoḥanan praises one who sees Palmyra’s downfall because it helped destroy both Temples: eighty thousand archers in the First Destruction and eight thousand in the Second. The sugya then states that Rufus ploughed over the Temple, corresponding to the tradition that “the city was ploughed over.”

The whole sugya is therefore a chain of destruction traditions: Betar, Jerusalem, the Temple, priesthood, towns, agriculture, animals, and exilic geography. Its organizing concern is the accumulated memory of catastrophe, interpreted through Scripture, moral causality, and rabbinic lament.

Outline

Intro

The Passage

Part 2

1. R’ Yehuda HaNasi & R’ Yoḥanan - R’ Yehuda HaNasi preached 24 stories on “He swallowed and showed no mercy,” while R’ Yoḥanan preached 60; R’ Yehuda HaNasi said less because elderly eyewitnesses to the Destruction would cry and silence him - Lamentations 2:2 (#12)

Betar, Bar Koziba, and Hadrian (132–136 CE)

1. R’ Yehuda b. Illai citing his teacher Baruch - Jacob’s voice cries over what Esau’s hands did at Betar - Genesis 27:22

2. R’ Shimon b. Yoḥai citing R’ Akiva - R’ Akiva interpreted “a star from Jacob” as Bar Koziba arising from Jacob - Numbers 24:17 (#13)

3. Anecdote re R’ Akiva and R’ Yoḥanan b. Torta - R’ Akiva identified Bar Koziba as the Messiah; R’ Yoḥanan b Torta rejected this, saying Bar Koziba would die before the Messiah came

Part 2

1. R’ Yoḥanan - Hadrian’s voice killed 80,000 myriads at Betar

2. R’ Yoḥanan - 80,000 pairs of horn-blowers encircled Betar, each commanding many troops

3. Anecdote re Ben Koziba and the rabbis - Ben Koziba had 200,000 soldiers with a cut-off finger; the rabbis objected (to his cutting off fingers), so instead he tested soldiers by requiring them to uproot cedars while riding horses

4. Before battle, Ben Koziba asked God neither to assist nor obstruct him - Psalms 60:12

5. Anecdote re R’ Elazar of Modiin - During Hadrian’s 3½-year siege, R’ Elazar of Modiin prayed daily that God not judge that day

6. Anecdote re Samaritan and Hadrian - A Samaritan persuaded Hadrian not to abandon the siege of Betar, claiming he could make the city surrender

7. Anecdote re Samaritan, R’ Elazar of Modiin, and Ben Koziba

   1. The Samaritan framed R’ Elazar as a traitor

   2. Ben Koziba interrogated R’ Elazar, then kicked and killed him

   3. Bat kol - Ben Koziba killed R’ Elazar, “the arm and right eye of Israel,” so his own arm and right eye would be struck - Zechariah 11:17

8. Anecdote re Hadrian and the Samaritan - Hadrian found a snake wrapped around Ben Koziba and declared that only God could have killed him - Deuteronomy 32:30

9. The massacre at Betar was so vast that blood reached a horse’s nose, moved large stones, and flowed to the sea despite Betar’s distance

10. 300 children’s brains were found on one stone; 3 boxes of tefillin boxes of 9 se’ah each were found, or alternatively 9 boxes of 3 se’ah each

11. Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel - Betar had 500 schools, the smallest with at least 500 children

    1. The children expected to fight with their styluses

    2. Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel - Of all those children, only he himself survived; he applied a verse of lament to himself - Lamentations 3:51

12. Hadrian fenced an 18-by-18-mil vineyard with the corpses of Betar’s dead and left them unburied, until a later emperor allowed burial

13. Rav Ḥuna - When Betar’s dead were allowed burial, the blessing “Who is good and does good” was instituted: “good” because they did not decompose, “does good” because they were buried (#14)

14. R’ Yose - Betar lasted 52 years after the Temple’s destruction

15. Divine reason why Betar was destroyed: because its people lit lights after the Second Temple’s destruction, rejoicing over Jerusalem’s fall

Part 3

1. Jerusalem’s councilors exploited travelers by forging property sales

   1. ... leading victims to curse their own journeys to Jerusalem

2. “They hunted our steps” refers to the obstruction of access to Jerusalem and the doom of the Temple; those who rejoiced at Jerusalem’s fall were also punished - Lamentations 4:18; Proverbs 17:5

3. Anecdote re two brothers in Kefar Ḥariba - Two brothers defeated Romans, but rejected divine help using the same formula as Ben Koziba: “may He neither help nor obstruct” - Psalms 60:12 (#15)

Judean Towns before the Second Temple’s Destruction (70 CE)

1. Two cedars on the Mount of Olives supported major Second Temple-related commerce: purity shops and bird offerings for all Israel (#16)

2. Mount Shimon was highly productive

   1. Divine reason it was destroyed: either because of prostitution or because they played ball

3. Narrative re Elazar b. Ḥarsom - King’s Mountain had 10,000 towns; Elazar b. Ḥarsom owned 1,000 towns and 1,000 ships, all destroyed

4. Kabul, Shiḥin, and Magdala of the Dyers were towns who supplied Jerusalem; they were destroyed for quarrel, sorcery, and prostitution respectively

5. Three large Judean towns were named for their traits: “evil village” for not hosting travelers, “cress village” for rapid population growth, and “boys’ village” because its women bore boys

6. R’ Yoḥanan - At Gufna, 80 pairs of priestly brothers married 80 pairs of priestly sisters in one night, aside from many others

7. R’ Yoḥanan - The town of Magdala of the Dyers had 80 fustian-weaving shops

8. R’ Ḥiyya b. Abba - Kefar Imra had 80 shops selling pure goods

9. R’ Yirmeyah citing R’ Ḥiyya b. Abba - Shiḥin had 80 metal shiddot

10. R’ Yannai - In his time, there was no shidda

11. R’ Ze’ira citing Rav Ḥuna - Immer was the smallest priestly division, yet produced 85,000 young priests

The First Temple’s Destruction (587 BCE)

1. R’ Yoḥanan - 80,000 young priests were killed over the blood of Zechariah - II Chronicles 24:20-22 (#17)

2. R’ Yudan asking R’ Aḥa - Zechariah (in the First Temple period) was killed in the priests’ courtyard, not the women’s or Israelites’ courtyard

3. His blood was left uncovered - Leviticus 17:13; Ezekiel 24:7-8

4. Israel committed seven sins that day: killing a priest, prophet, and judge; spilling innocent blood; defiling the courtyard; and doing so on Shabbat and Yom Kippur

Part 4

1. Narrative re Nebuzaraddan (at the time of the Destruction of the First Temple) - Nebuzaraddan found Zechariah’s blood bubbling

   1. After false explanations failed, the people confessed it was the blood of a priest, prophet, and judge whom they had killed

   2. Nebuzaraddan slaughtered 80,000 young priests over the blood, yet it still bubbled; he rebuked God

   3. Divine mercy was aroused and the blood was absorbed - Deuteronomy 4:31

2. R’ Yoḥanan - 80,000 young priests fled into First Temple chambers and were burned; only Joshua b. Yehozadak survived - Zechariah 3:2 (#18)

3. R’ Yoḥanan - 80,000 young priests fled to Nebuchadnezzar’s army and then to Ishmaelites, who fed them salted fish and killed them by giving them inflated waterskins (#19)

4. Isaiah’s “massa be-Arav” is read as a prophecy about Israelite refugees among Arabs; their suffering is linked to failure to observe commandments - Isaiah 21:13-15

   1. Yishmael - Genesis 21:19

   2. Sabbatical years - Exodus 23:11

   3. Sabbath - Nehemiah 13:15

   4. Torah study - Numbers 21:14

Judea before and after the Second Temple’s Destruction (70 CE)

1. R’ Yoḥanan - From Gibbethon to Antipatris there were 60,000 towns; the smallest was Bet Shemesh - I Samuel 6:19 (#20)

2. R’ Ḥanina - The Land of Israel “contracted” miraculously (explaining how so many towns fit in that area)

3. R’ Ze’ira - The Land of Israel is “insolent” for still producing fruit after such destruction (#21)

4. The land produces fruit either because it is fertilized or because its soil is turned over

5. Anecdote - In the valley of Arbel, a farmer dug up burning soil that burned his seed

6. R’ Yose - For 52 years no bird flew in the Land of Israel - Jeremiah 9:9 (#22)

7. R’ Ḥanina - Forty years before the Babylonian exile, date palms were planted in Babylonia so Israel would desire sweetness, which trains the tongue for Torah

8. R’ Ḥanina b. Abbahu - 700 kosher fish species, 800 kosher locust species, and countless birds went into exile with Israel to Babylonia

   1. All returned except the shibuta fish

9. R’ Ḥuna b. Yosef - Fish went into exile and returned through the deep (tehom)

10. R’ Yoḥanan - One who sees Palmyra’s downfall is fortunate, because it helped destroy both Temples: 80,000 archers in the First Destruction and 8,000 in the Second (#23)

“And the city was ploughed over.” (#24)

1. [Tineas] Rufus ploughed over the Second Temple

The Passage

https://chavrutai.com/yerushalmi/Taanit/4.5#12 thru the end (#24)

R’ Yehuda HaNasi & R’ Yoḥanan - R’ Yehuda HaNasi preached 24 stories on “He swallowed and showed no mercy,” while R’ Yoḥanan preached 60; R’ Yehuda HaNasi said less because elderly eyewitnesses to the Destruction would cry and silence him - Lamentations 2:2 (#12)

#12

ונלכדה ביתתר.

רבי הוה דרש עשרין וארבעה עובדין בבילע יי ולא חמל.

ורבי יוחנן דרש אשיתין.

“Betar was taken.”

R’ [Yehuda HaNasi] used to preach 24 stories (עובדין) about “YHWH swallowed and showed no mercy” (Lamentations 2:2),

but R’ Yoḥanan 60.

ורבי יוחנן יתיר על רבי?!

אלא על ידי דרבי הוה סמיך לחרבן בית מוקדשא

הוה תמן סבין נהירין

והוה דרש

ואינון בכיי ומשתתקין וקיימין לון.

R’ Yoḥanan more (יתיר) than R’ [Yehuda HaNasi]?!

Rather, since R’ [Yehuda HaNasi] was closer to the destruction of the [Second] Temple,

there were there old men remembering,

and R’ [Yehuda HaNasi] would preach,

and those would cry and continuously silence him.

Betar, Bar Koziba, and Hadrian (132–136 CE)

R’ Yehuda b. Illai citing his teacher Baruch - Jacob’s voice cries over what Esau’s hands did at Betar - Genesis 27:22

(See footnote.)³

תני:

אמר רבי יהודה בירבי אלעאי:

ברוך רבי היה דורש:

הקול קול יעקב

והידים ידי עשו.

קולו שליעקב צווח

ממה שעשו לו ידיו שלעשו בביתתר.

It was stated:

R’ Yehuda ben R’ Illai said:

Baruch my teacher used to preach:

the voice is Jacob’s voice

but the hands are Esau’s hands (Genesis 27:22)

Jacob’s voice cries (צווח)

about what Esau’s hands did at Betar.

R’ Shimon b. Yoḥai citing R’ Akiva - R’ Akiva interpreted “a star from Jacob” as Bar Koziba arising from Jacob - Numbers 24:17 (#13)

#13

תני רבי שמעון בן יוחי:

עקיבה רבי היה דורש:

דרך כוכב מיעקב.

דרך כוזבא מיעקב.

R’ Shimon ben Yohai stated:

Akiva my teacher used to preach:

there appeared a star out of Jacob (Numbers 24:17)

there appeared Koziba out of Jacob.⁴

Anecdote re R’ Akiva and R’ Yoḥanan b. Torta - R’ Akiva identified Bar Koziba as the Messiah; R’ Yoḥanan b Torta rejected this, saying Bar Koziba would die before the Messiah came

רבי עקיבה כד הוה חמי בר כוזבה הוה אמר:

דין הוא מלכא משיחא.

אמר ליה רבי יוחנן בן תורתא:

עקיבה!

יעלו עשבים בלחייך

(ואדיין) [ועדיין] בן דוד [לא] יבא.

When R’ Akiva saw Bar Koziba He said:

this is King Messiah

R’ Yoḥanan ben Torta said to him:

Akiva!

Grass will grow from your cheeks (לחייך)

and still David’s son⁵ (still has to) [will not have] come.

1. Compare the parallel Bavli sugyas in tractate Gittin 55b-58a, in these pieces of mine:

1. Talmudic Stories Relating to the Destruction of the Second Temple (Gittin 55b-56a)

2. From Nero to Titus: The Siege of Jerusalem and the Destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE in Talmudic Retelling (Gittin 56a-b)”, final part: Pt3

3. [Appendix 1 - Onkelos Consults Judaism’s Historical Enemies: Seeking Advice from the Dead Titus, Balaam, and Jesus on Judaism and Conversion (Gittin 56b-57a)]

4. The Destruction of “King’s Mountain” (‘Tur Malka’): A Story of Custom, Rebellion, and Massacre (Gittin 57a)

5. Three Talmudic Stories about the Righteous Community of Kefar Sekhanya of Egypt (Gittin 57a)

6. [Appendix - The Betar Massacre (Gittin 57a, sections # 21-23)]

7. Rome’s Hands, Jacob’s Voice: A Talmudic Lament Over the Destruction (Gittin 57b-58a)

And see also my “The Origins of Tisha B’Av and the Chronology of Numbers 10-14: the Date of the Destructions of the Both Temples and the Biblical Spies Episode (Taanit 29a)”, final part: Pt2, which is on the same Mishnah that this Yerushalmi sugya is on.

2. On this length of time, compare also the statement in the Bavli noting the 2.5 year length of “Ben-Koziba’s rulership (מלכות בן כוזיבא - literally: “Ben-Koziba’s monarchy, kingship”)”, in my “Pt2 The Messianic Era in the Talmud: Calculations of World Duration and Messianic Timing (Sanhedrin 96b-99a)“, section “1st, great, Hasmonean monarchy ruled 70 years; The 2nd kingdom, of Herod and his descendants, ruled 52 years; and Bar-Kokheva, was 2.5 years“.

3. Compare the parallel in my “Rome’s Hands, Jacob’s Voice: A Talmudic Lament Over the Destruction (Gittin 57b-58a)“ (cited in previous footnote), section “Mapping “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau” (Genesis 27:22) onto Roman violence against Jews“.

On “Edom” being identified with “Rome” in Talmudic literature, see my note in my piece here, on section “Child’s Verse & Conversion - A boy recites Ezekiel 25:14; Nero infers God will punish Rome through Israel, flees, converts, and becomes ancestor of R’ Meir“.

4. Note that this “interpretation” is the source for the epithet “Bar-Kochba”; his actual name was “Bar-Koziba”. See my short note on this in my “Pt2 What’s in a Talmudic Name? Unpacking the World of Personal Names in Talmudic Literature“, section “Slurs“.

5. בן דוד - i.e. the Messiah.

On “son of David” as a term for the Messiah, see the note on the intro to my “Pt1 The Messianic Era in the Talmud: The Character of the Messianic Generation and Moral and Social Collapse in the Leadup to the Messianic Era (Sanhedrin 96b-99a)“.