of Jonathan
goes on to inform us, "At the fourth hour, when the sun had waxed hot upon
it, it melted and became streams of water, which flowed away into the
great sea, and wild animals that were clean, and cattle, came to drink of
it, and the children of Israel hunted and ate them" (Exod. xvi. 21). It is
further related that the Queen of Sheba (whom the Rabbis labor to prove to
have been the King of Sheba) wished to test the knowledge of Solomon who
had written on botany "from the cedar to the hyssop." She once stood at a
distance from him with two exquisite wreaths of flowers--one artificial,
one natural. They were so much alike that the King looked perplexed, and
the courtiers looked melancholy. Observing a swarm of bees on the window,
he commanded it to be opened. All the bees lighted on the natural and not
one on the artificial wreath. Solomon is also said to have sent Benaiah,
the son of Jehoiada, to bind Aschmedai, the king of the devils. After
deceiving the devil with wine he made him reveal the secret of the
Schamir, or little worm, which can cleave the hardest stone. And by the
aid of this worm Solomon built the Temple. The devil afterward asked
Solomon for his signet ring, and when he had given it to him the devil
stretched one wing up to the firmament and the other to the earth, and
jerked Solomon four hundred miles away. Then assuming the aspect of
Solomon, he seated himself on his throne. After Solomon had again obtained
it, he wrote, "What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh
under the sun?" (Eccles. i. 3).

A story is told of Nebuzaradan, that he saw the blood of Zecharias
bubbling in the court of the priests. When he asked what it meant, he was
informed that it was the blood of bullocks and lambs. When he had ordered
bullocks and lambs to be slain, the blood of Zecharias still bubbled and
reeked above theirs. The priests then confessed that it was the blood of a
priest and prophet and judge, whom they had slain. He then commanded
eighty thousand priests to be put to death. The blood, however, still
continued to bubble. God then said, "Is this man, who is but flesh and
blood, filled with pity toward my children, and shall not I be much more?"
So he gave a sign to the blood, and it was swallowed up in the place. Of
the eighty thousand priests slain none was left but Joshua the son of
Jozedek, of whom it is written, "Is not this a brand plucked out of the
fire?" (Zech. iii. 2). Of Titus it is