Stars, Serpents, and Salvation: Three Talmudic Tales of Astrological Fate and Divine Intervention (Shabbat 156b)
Destiny Denied: Stories of Shmuel and Ablat; R’ Akiva's Daughter; and Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak
These passages are part of a larger sugya on astrology.1 The first two stories are about being saved from poisonous snakes.2
Outline
Shmuel, Ablat, and the Supernatural Survival from a Poisonous Snake
R’ Akiva's Daughter: The Wedding Day Horoscope and a Dangerous Snake's Demise
Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak, a Mother's Wisdom, and the Power of Discipline
The Passage
Shmuel, Ablat, and the Supernatural Survival from a Poisonous Snake
The Talmud recounts an incident involving Shmuel and the non-Jewish scholar Ablat (אבלט), who observed people heading to a lake (אגמא).
Ablat predicted the man would not return because a snake (חיויא) would bite (טריק) him, but Shmuel countered that if the man was Jewish (בר ישראל), he would survive.
The man indeed returned unharmed, prompting Ablat to examine his belongings (טוניה), where he found a snake cut in two.
שמואל ואבלט הוו יתבי,
והוו קאזלי הנך אינשי לאגמא.
אמר ליה אבלט לשמואל: האי גברא אזיל ולא אתי, טריק ליה חיויא ומיית.
אמר ליה שמואל: אי בר ישראל הוא, אזיל ואתי.
אדיתבי, אזל, ואתא.
קם אבלט, שדיה לטוניה,
אשכח ביה חיויא, דפסיק ושדי בתרתי גובי.
[...]
The Gemara relates that Shmuel and the gentile sage Ablet were sitting,
and they saw these people were going to the lake.
Ablet said to Shmuel: This person will go and he will not return, because a snake will bite him and he will die.
Shmuel said to him: If he is a Jew, he will go and come back.
As they were sitting for a while, the person they discussed went away and then returned.
Ablet stood up, threw down the person’s burden,
and inside he found a snake cut and cast in two pieces.
[...]
R’ Akiva's Daughter: The Wedding Day Horoscope and a Dangerous Snake's Demise
Rabbi Akiva's daughter was foretold by astrologers3 that she would die from a snake bite on her wedding day.
She was very worried (דאיג). Ultimately, on the day of her wedding she unknowingly killed the snake fated to kill her, when she happened to pin (דצתה) her hair brooch (מכבנתא) into a wall, stabbing the snake's eye.
The next morning, she discovered the snake impaled on her pin.
רבי עקיבא הויא ליה ברתא,
אמרי ליה כלדאי: ההוא יומא דעיילה לבי גננא, טריק לה חיויא, ומיתא.
הוה דאיג אמילתא טובא.
ההוא יומא שקלתה למכבנתא, דצתה בגודא,
איתרמי איתיב בעיניה דחיויא.
לצפרא כי קא שקלה לה, הוה קא סריך ואתי חיויא בתרה.
[...]
Rabbi Akiva had a daughter,
and Chaldean astrologers told him that on the same day that she enters the wedding canopy, a snake will bite her and she will die.
She was very worried about this.
On that day, her wedding day, she took the ornamental pin from her hair and stuck it into a hole in the wall for safekeeping,
and it happened that it entered directly into the eye of the snake.
In the morning, when she took the pin, the snake was pulled and came out with it.
[...]
Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak, a Mother's Wisdom, and the Power of Headcovering and Prayer
Astrologers predicted that Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak would become a thief.
His mother, determined to prevent this, insisted he always cover his head to instill fear of Heaven and pray for mercy. Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak himself was not aware of these reasons.
One day, while studying (גריס) under a palm tree, the part of the cloak (גלימא) covering his head fell off. He raised his eyes and saw the dates on the tree. He was overcome (אלמיה) by impulse (יצריה) and climbed (סליק) the tree, biting off a bunch (קיבורא) of dates.
(This revealed his innate tendency to steal, but keeping his head covered and prayer helped him resist it.)
אימיה דרב נחמן בר יצחק אמרי לה כלדאי: בריך גנבא הוה.
לא שבקתיה גלויי רישיה.
אמרה ליה: כסי רישיך, כי היכי דתיהוי עלך אימתא דשמיא, ובעי רחמי.
לא הוה ידע אמאי קאמרה ליה.
יומא חד, יתיב קא גריס תותי דיקלא,
נפל גלימא מעילוי רישיה,
דלי עיניה, חזא לדיקלא,
אלמיה יצריה,
סליק, פסקיה לקיבורא בשיניה.
Chaldean astrologers told Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak’s mother: Your son will be a thief.
She did not allow him to uncover his head.
She said to her son: Cover your head so that the fear of Heaven will be upon you, and pray for Divine mercy.
He did not know why she said this to him.
One day he was sitting and studying beneath a palm tree that did not belong to him,
and the cloak fell off of his head.
He lifted his eyes and saw the palm tree.
He was overcome by impulse
and he climbed up and detached a bunch of dates with his teeth. Apparently, he had an inborn inclination to steal, but was able to overcome that inclination with proper education and prayer.
For the previous part of this sugya, see my series “Astrological Destinies in the Talmud: Influence of Birth Timings on Character (Shabbat 156a)“, final part here.
I skip the conclusions of the first two stories discussing the specific merits that caused divine saving.
On the danger of snakes in the Talmud, see my extended note in yesterday’s piece, here.
כלדאי - literally: “Chaldeans”.
See Wikipedia, “Chaldeans”, sections “End of the Chaldean dynasty“ and “Legacy“, with slight adjustments:
When the Babylonian Empire was absorbed into the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the name "Chaldean" lost its meaning in reference to a particular ethnicity or land, but lingered for a while as a term solely and explicitly used to describe a societal class of astrologers and astronomers in southern Mesopotamia. The original Chaldean tribe had long ago became Akkadianized, adopting Akkadian culture, religion, language and customs, blending into the majority native population, and eventually wholly disappearing as a distinct race of people, as had been the case with other preceding migrant peoples, such as the Amorites, Kassites, Suteans and Arameans of Babylonia.
The Persians considered this Chaldean societal class to be masters of reading and writing, and especially versed in all forms of incantation, sorcery, witchcraft, and the magical arts. They spoke of astrologists and astronomers as Chaldeans, and it is used with this specific meaning in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 1:4 [וללמדם ספר ולשון כשדים], [and] 2:2ff [ויאמר המלך לקרא לחרטמים ולאשפים ולמכשפים ולכשדים להגיד למלך חלמתיו].) and by classical writers, such as Strabo.
The disappearance of the Chaldeans as an ethnicity and Chaldea as a land is evidenced by the fact that the Persian rulers of the Achaemenid Empire (539–330 BC) did not retain a province called "Chaldea", nor did they refer to "Chaldeans" as a race of people in their written annals.
This is in contrast to Assyria, and for a time Babylonia also, where the Persians retained the names Assyria and Babylonia as designations for distinct geo-political entities within the Achaemenid Empire. In the case of the Assyrians in particular, Achaemenid records show Assyrians holding important positions within the empire, particularly with regards to military and civil administration […]
The term Chaldean was still in use at the time of Cicero (106–43 BC) long after the Chaldeans had disappeared. In one of his speeches he mentioned "Chaldean astrologers", and he spoke of them more than once in his De Divinatione.
Other classical Latin writers who speak of them as distinguished for their knowledge of astronomy and astrology are Pliny the Elder, Valerius Maximus, Aulus Gellius, Cato the Elder, Lucretius, and Juvenal. Horace in his Carpe diem ode speaks of the "Babylonian calculations" (Babylonii numeri), the horoscopes of astrologers consulted regarding the future.
In the late antiquity, a variant of Aramaic that was used in some books of the Bible was misnamed as Chaldean by Jerome of Stridon. That inaccurate usage continued down the centuries in Western Europe, and it was still customary during the nineteenth century, until the misnomer was corrected by scholars