Sunday, December 7, 2025

Strack and Billerbeck on Hebrews 11:37

  

11:37: (Others) were sawed apart.

 

So according to the tradition, particularly the prophet Isaiah.

 

Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10.28C.37: Manasseh ran after Isaiah and wanted to kill him; but he fled before him. He fled to a cedar that swallowed him up with the exception of the tassels of his overcoat. Then someone came and reported it to Manasseh. He said to them, “Go and saw apart the cedar!” They sawed the cedar apart and blood was seen flowing. And Yahweh was not willing to forgive this, and so Manasseh has no share in the future (= in the future world). — See further legendary material in Mart. Isa. 5:2–14; b. Yebam. 49B. ‖ Babylonian Talmud Yebamot 49B and Sanhedrin 103B are also general: Manasseh killed Isaiah. (Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash, ed. Jacob N. Cerone, 4 vols. [trans. Andrew Bowden and Joseph Longarino; Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2021], 3:867-68)