18:3: Like little children.
The child appears as an image for purity from sin in Pesiq. 61B: “Two
one-year-old lambs” כְּבָשִׂים
(Num 28:3). The school of Shammai said, “כְּבָשִׂים, for they press down כּוֹבְשִׁין Israel’s debt; see Mic 7:19: ‘He will press down יִכְבּוֹש our debts.’ ” The school of Hillel
said, “Everything that is pressed down ultimately swims up; rather כְּבָשִׂים, because they wash away מְכַבְּסִין Israel’s debt and make them (the
Israelites) like a one-year-old child, which is pure from every sin.”—A
parallel passage is found in Pesiq. Rab. 16 (84A). (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, 2022], 1:881)
