agitated, he asked, 'What is this?' and he was
told that it was the spilled blood of the sacrifices. Then he ordered
blood from the sacrifices to be brought and compared it with the blood
of the murdered prophet, when, finding the one unlike the other, he
said, 'If ye tell me the truth, well and good; if not, I will comb your
flesh with iron currycombs!' Upon this they confessed, 'He was a
prophet, and because he rebuked us on matters of religion, we arose and
killed him, and it is now some years since his blood has been in the
restless condition in which thou seest it.' 'Well,' said he, 'I will
pacify him.' He then brought the greater and lesser Sanhedrin and
slaughtered them, but the blood of the prophet did not rest. He next
slaughtered young men and maidens, but the blood continued restless as
before. He finally brought school-children and slaughtered them, but the
blood being still unpacified, he exclaimed, 'Zachariah! Zachariah! I
have for thy sake killed the best among them; will it please thee if I
kill them all?' As he said this the blood of the prophet stood still and
quiescent. He then reasoned within himself thus, 'If the blood of one
individual has brought about so great a punishment, how much greater
will my punishment be for the slaughter of so many!' In short, he
repented, fled from his house, and became a Jewish proselyte."

_Gittin_, fol. 57, col. 2.

The same story is repeated in _Sanhedrin_, fol. 96, col. 2, with
some variations; notably this, among others, that it was because
the prophet prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem that they
put him to death.

(Gen, xxvii. 2), "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the
hands of Esau." The first-named "voice" alludes to the voice of
lamentation caused by Hadrian, who had at Alexandria in Egypt massacred
twice the number of Jews that had come forth under Moses. The "voice of
Jacob" refers to a similar lamentation occasioned by Vespasian, who put
to death in the city of Byther four hundred myriads, or, as some say,
four thousand myriads. "The hands are the hands of Esau," that is, the
empire which destroyed our house, burned our Temple, and banished us
from our country. Or the "voice of Jacob" means that there is no
effectual prayer that is not offered up by the progeny of Jacob; and
"the hands are the hands of Esau," that there is no victorious battle
which is not fought by the descendants of Esau.

Ibid.

Tamar and Zimr