stated in PR 33, 155a, that the Shamir was also applied to the building of the temple for the purpose of splitting the rock-like hard wood (so is גלומי to be translated; comp. Syriac גלמא “rocky ground”).
163 Tosefta Sotah 15.1; Babli 48b; Yerushalmi 9, 20d. Comp. note 166.
164 Tehillim 77, 351, which was incorporated in Yalkut II, 182. Another legend on the procuring of the Shamir is given in vol. IV, p. 166.
165 Sotah 9.2 (it is the first temple which is meant here, contrary to the view of Tosafot on Zebahim 54b, caption אבנים); Tosefta 15.1; Babli 48b; Yerushalmi 9, 20d. In the talmudic-midrashic sources it is never explicitly stated that the Shamir was a living creature. Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, the opinion of medieval authors that it was a worm (Rashi Pesahim 54a; Maimonides, commentary on Abot 5.6; Mahzor Vitry 540 and many others) is undoubtedly correct. In Babli Sotah, loc. cit., and PR 38, 153a, the expression מראה וכו׳, used in connection with the Shamir, clearly shows it was the glance of a living being which effected the splitting of wood and stones. A caper-spurge, to which the non-Jewish sources of the Middle Ages ascribed the characteristic of the Shamir, is also known in Jewish literature (WR 32.4; Koheleth 5.9); but it is not identical with the Shamir. The view of the tannaitic sources that the Shamir was only accessible to man at the time of the building of the temple, while the caper-spurge could be found in later times, proves that these two must not be confused with one another. Comp. Cassel, Shamir, in Denkschriften der Kgl. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Erfurt, 1854; Grünbaum, Gesammelte Aufsätze, 41, seq.; Löw, Graphische Requisiten, 181, seq. (he justly refutes Cassel’s assertions that Shamir was a stone); Salzberger, Salomos Tempelhau und Thron, 36–54.
166 Shabbat 28b; Yerushalmi 2, 4d; PR 33, 154d; Koheleth 1, 9. Comp. vol. III, p. 164. On the one-horned animal see note 108 on vol. I, p. 98. PR, 155a, states that the wood used by Solomon (1 Kings 10.12) was also created with this end in view; it therefore disappeared as soon as it had fulfilled its purpose.
167 Baba Batra 74a. Comp. Löw, Aramaische Fischnamen, No. 19, in Nöldeke-Festschrift 550.
168 Tosefta Bekorot 1.11 and Babli 8a, where instead of דולפינין of the Tosefta, the Aramaic בני ימא is used, which Rashi renders by “sirens” while ps.-R. Gershon explains it as “seamen”. In our text of
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