PASSAGES RELATING TO JESUS
63
f i rst and third do indeed suggest the Gospel of John,
but it is enough to admit a general knowledge of
what Christians alleged concerning Jesus from the
Rabbi's own discussions with them.
The saying is based upon Num. xxiii.
19: God
is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man
that he should repent. Hath he said and shall he
not do it ? or hath he spoken and shall he not make
it good ?
Various interpretations of these words,
by Rabbis of Babylonia, are given, and then follows
the sarcastic application of the text by Abahu.
Although this saying is not quoted elsewhere, nor
even referred to, so far as I know, yet it belongs to
a somewhat extensive group of Haggadic passages, of
which the common foundation is the story of Balaam,
Num. xxii.-xxiv. It will be shown presently that in
the Talmud Balaam is regarded as a type of Jesus.
We thus have an additional reason, beside the
internal evidence furnished by the words themselves,
for regarding the saying of Abahu as an anti-
Christian polemic. Here may be best introduced a
passage in the Jalqut Shim'oni, in which is found an
amplification of Abahu's words. I give it according
to the Salonica edition, as it is expunged from the
later ones.
(11) Jalq. Shim.
§
766.-R. El'azar ha-Qappar
says, God gave strength to his [Balaam's] voice, so
that it went from one end of the world to the other,
because he looked forth and beheld the peoples that
bow down to the sun and moon and stars and to
wood and stone, and he looked forth and beheld that
there was a man, son of a woman, who should rise up
and seek to make himself God, and to cause the
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