Hebrew Riddles
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Hebrew Riddles
Riddles in Hebrew are referred to as חידות ''ḥidot'' (singular חִידָה ''ḥidah''). They have at times been a major and distinctive part of literature in Hebrew and closely related languages. At times they have a complex relationship with proverbs. In the Bible Riddles are not common in the Bible, nor in Midrashic literature, though other tests of verbal wit are. The most prominent riddle in the Bible is Samson's riddle: Samson outwitted the Philistines by posing a riddle about the lion and the beehive until they learned the answer from his Philistine bride, costing Samson 30 suits of clothes (Judges 14:5-18). However, some passages in the Book of Proverbs in which sets of three or four objects are mentioned (e.g. 30:15 ''et seq.'') were likely originally in the form of riddles, while Ezekiel 17:1-10 is also a riddle of sortsJoseph Jacobs,Riddle, in ''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish P ...
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Cambridge University Library Taylor-Schechter Misc 8-47 Recto Yehuda HaLevi Riddles Colours Inverted
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became an important trading centre during the Roman and Viking ages, and there is archaeological evidence of settlement in the area as early as the Bronze Age. The first town charters were granted in the 12th century, although modern city status was not officially conferred until 1951. The city is most famous as the home of the University of Cambridge, which was founded in 1209 and consistently ranks among the best universities in the world. The buildings of the university include King's College Chapel, Cavendish Laboratory, and the Cambridge University Library, one of the largest legal deposit libraries in the world. The city's skyline is dominated by several college buildings, along with the spire of the Our Lady and the English Martyrs Chur ...
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Kinnim
Kinnim (Hebrew: ) is a tractate in the order of Kodshim in the Mishna. The name, meaning "nests", refers to the tractate's subject matter of errors in bird-offerings. It is the last tractate in the order, because of its shortness (3 chapters) and because it deals with a very rare and unusual area of Jewish law. The premise of the tractate is the obligatory bird-offering that has to be brought by certain people (for instance Nazirites at the completion of their vow and women after childbirth). The offering consists of a pair of birds, one for a sin-offering and the other for a peace-offering. A common practice was to purchase a cage with two birds, without designating which one was for which type of sacrifice. The Kohen would then allocate a sacrifice to a bird. However, the complication is that a cage (consisting of a pair of birds) cannot have both birds offered as one type of sacrifice. The result is that if birds become mixed up (whether completely or a number of birds flies fr ...
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Moses Ibn Ezra
Rabbi Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as Ha-Sallaḥ ("writer of penitential prayers") ( ar, أَبُو هَارُون مُوسَى بِن يَعْقُوب اِبْن عَزْرَا, ''Abu Harun Musa bin Ya'qub ibn 'Azra'', he, מֹשֶׁה בֵּן יַעֲקֹב הסַּלָּח אִבְּן עֶזְרָא, ''Moshe ben Ya'aqov ha-Sallaḥ ibn 'Ezra'') was a Jewish, Spanish philosopher, linguist, and poet. He was born in Granada about 1055 – 1060, and died after 1138. Ibn Ezra, a Jew, is considered to have had great influence in the Arabic literary world. He is considered one of Spain's greatest poets and was thought to be ahead of his time in terms of his theories on the nature of poetry. One of the more revolutionary aspects of Ibn Ezra's poetry that has been debated is his definition of poetry as metaphor and how his poetry illuminates Aristotle's early ideas. The impact of Ibn Ezra's philosophical works was minor compared to his impact on poetry, but they address his ...
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Samuel Ibn Naghrillah
Samuel ibn Naghrillah (, ''Sh'muel HaLevi ben Yosef HaNagid''; ''ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq ʾIsmāʿīl bin an-Naghrīlah''), also known as Samuel HaNagid (, ''Shmuel HaNagid'', lit. ''Samuel the Prince'') and Isma’il ibn Naghrilla (born 993; died 1056), was a medieval Jewish Spanish Talmudic scholar, grammarian, philologist, soldier, merchant, politician, and an influential poet who lived in Iberia at the time of the Moorish rule. His poetry was one area through which he was well known. Marcus, Jacob Rader. "59: Samuel Ha-Nagid, Vizier of Granada." ''The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book, 315-1791.'' Cincinnati: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1938. 335-38. He was perhaps the most politically influential Jew in Muslim Spain. Stillman, Norman A. ''The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book'', The Jewish Publication Society of America,1979. 56 He was also the Prime Minister of the Muslim state of Granada and battlefield commander of the non-Jewish Granadan army. Lif ...
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Diwan (poetry)
In Islamic cultures of the Middle East, North Africa, Sicily and South Asia, a Diwan ( fa, دیوان, ''divân'', ar, ديوان, ''dīwān'') is a collection of poems by one author, usually excluding his or her long poems ( mathnawī). The vast majority of Diwan poetry was lyric in nature: either ghazals or ''gazel''s (which make up the greatest part of the repertoire of the tradition), or ''kasîde''s. There were, however, other common genres, most particularly the ''mesnevî'', a kind of verse romance and thus a variety of narrative poetry; the two most notable examples of this form are the ''Layla and Majnun'' (ليلى و مجنون) of Fuzûlî and the ''Hüsn ü Aşk'' (حسن و عشق; "Beauty and Love") of Şeyh Gâlib. Originating in Persian literature, the idea spread to the Arab and Turkish worlds, and South Asia, and the term was sometimes used in Europe, not always in the same way. Etymology The English usage of the phrase "diwan poetry" comes from the Arab ...
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Dunash Ben Labrat
Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat (920/925 – after 985) ( he, ר׳ דוֹנָש הַלֵּוִי בֵּן לָבְּרָט; ar, دناش بن لبراط) was a medieval Jewish commentator, poet, and grammarian of the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain. He is known for his philological commentary, ''Teshuvot Dunash'', and for his liturgical poems D'ror Yiqra and D'vai Haser. Life Dunash was, according to Moses ibn Ezra, born in Fes, the name ''Dunash'' being of Berber origin. In his youth he travelled to Baghdad to study with Saadia Gaon. On returning to Morocco he wrote many poems and became famous, and there were even poems written about him. He taught grammar and poetry. Hasdai ibn Shaprut, who lived in Córdoba, invited Dunash to Spain. Córdoba was then the center of culture and poetry in the Islamic world, and Hasdai endeavored to bring the best minds there. In Córdoba, Dunash met Menahem ben Saruq, also an important grammarian, though the two did not get along becaus ...
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Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus DIN 31635, translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label=Berber languages, Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The term is used by modern historians for the former Islamic states in modern Spain and Portugal. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula and a part of present-day southern France, Septimania (8th century). For nearly a hundred years, from the 9th century to the 10th, al-Andalus extended its presence from Fraxinetum into the Alps with a series of organized raids and chronic banditry. The name describes the different Arab and Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. These boundaries changed constantly as the Christian Reconquista progressed,"Para los autores árabes medievales, el término Al-And ...
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Riddles (Arabic)
Riddles are historically a significant genre of Arabic literature. The Qur’an does not contain riddles as such, though it does contain conundra. But riddles are attested in early Arabic literary culture, 'scattered in old stories attributed to the pre-Islamic bedouins, in the ''ḥadīth'' and elsewhere; and collected in chapters'. Since the nineteenth century, extensive scholarly collections have also been made of riddles in oral circulation. Although in 1996 the Syrian proverbs scholar Khayr al-Dīn Shamsī Bāshā published a survey of Arabic riddling, analysis of this literary form has been neglected by modern scholars, including its emergence in Arabic writing; there is also a lack of editions of important collections. A major study of grammatical and semantic riddles was, however, published in 2012, and since 2017 legal riddles have enjoyed growing attention.Elias G. Saba, ''Harmonizing Similarities: A History of Distinctions Literature in Islamic Law'', Islam – Thought, ...
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Targum Sheni
The ''Targum Sheni'' (''"Second Targum"'') is an Aramaic translation (''targum'') and elaboration of the Book of Esther, that embellishes the Biblical account with considerable new apocryphal material, not on the face of it directly related to the Esther story. Differences from the Book of Esther The ''Jewish Encyclopedia'' characterizes the story as a "genuine and exuberant midrash", i.e. a free elaboration, of a kind not unusual in Rabbinic literature. One notable addition to the story involves King Solomon holding a feast for the daunting army of animals, birds and demonic spirits he has as subjects. But the woodcock refuses to attend, on the grounds that Solomon is inferior to the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon. Solomon sends for the Queen, and houses her in a room made of glass, through which he reveals that she has a hairy foot. She demands from him the answer to three riddles before she will pay homage:Jacob Lassner, ''Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender a ...
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Midrash Ha-Ḥefez
Midrash ha-Ḥefez (midrash of desire / business) is a Hebrew text of 1430 about a wisdom contest between King Solomon and The Queen of Sheba. It is noted as part of a long literary tradition about these figures, and for its inclusion of a number of Hebrew riddles: * There is an enclosure with ten doors: when one is open nine are shut; when nine are open, one is shut. — The womb, the bodily orifices, and the umbilical cord. * Living, moves not, yet when its head is cut off it moves. — A ship in the sea (made from a tree). * What was that which is produced from the ground, yet produces it, while its food is the fruit of the ground? — A wick. Midrash ha-Hefez is also the title of a book by physician Rabbi Yahya bin Suleiman el-Israili (Zachariah bin Solomon ha-Rofeh), ca. 1430. The work contains homilies and haftarot on the Pentateuch, Book of Esther, and Book of Lamentations The Book of Lamentations ( he, אֵיכָה, , from its incipit meaning "how") is a collection of ...
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Midrash Proverbs
Midrash Proverbs (Hebrew: מדרש משלי, Midrash Mishlei) is the aggadic midrash to the Book of Proverbs. Names It is first mentioned under the title "Midrash Mishlei" by R. Hananeel b. Ḥushiel. Nathan of Rome called it "Aggadat Mishlei". In addition, it was erroneously called "Shocher Tov", a name which properly refers to Midrash Tehillim. Content This midrash is different from all the other aggadic midrashim, in that its interpretations approach the simple exegesis then in vogue, being brief and free from the prolixity found in the other midrashim, so that this work is in the form of a commentary rather than in that of a midrash. The interpretations follow immediately upon the words of the text, without the introductory formulas found in the other midrashim, "as Scripture says," or "Rabbi N. N. began" (the latter formula, however, occurs at the beginning of the midrash). The editor of the midrash drew upon the Mishnah, Tosefta, Mekhilta, Sifre, Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, A ...
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I Kings
The Book of Kings (, '' Sēfer Məlāḵīm'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Kings) in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of Israel also including the books of Joshua, Judges and Samuel. Biblical commentators believe the Books of Kings were written to provide a theological explanation for the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah by Babylon in c. 586 BCE and to provide a foundation for a return from Babylonian exile.Sweeney, p1/ref> The two books of Kings present a history of ancient Israel and Judah, from the death of King David to the release of Jehoiachin from imprisonment in Babylon—a period of some 400 years (). Scholars tend to treat the books as consisting of a first edition from the late 7th century BCE and of a second and final edition from the mid-6th century BCE.Fretheim, p. 7 Contents The Jerusalem Bible divides the two Books of Kings into eight sections: *1 Kings 1:1 ...
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