Kethuboth, fol. 112, col. 1.

The astrologers in Egypt said to Pharaoh, “What! shall a slave whose master bought him for twenty pieces of silver rule over us?” Pharaoh replied, “But I find him endowed with kingly qualities.”  “If that is the case,” they answered, “he must know seventy languages.”  Then came the angel Gabriel, and taught him seventy languages.

Soteh, fol. 36, col. 2.

When the leviathan makes the deep boil, the sea does not recover its calm for seventy years; for it is said (Job xli. 32), “One would think the deep is to be hoary,” and we cannot take the word “hoary” to imply a term of less than seventy years.

Bava Bathra, fol. 75, col. 1.

Abba Chalepha Keruya once remarked to Rav Cheyah bar Abba, “The sum total of Jacob’s family thou findest reckoned at seventy, whereas the numbers added up make only sixty-nine.  How is that?” Rav Cheyah made answer that the particle in verse 15, implies that Dinah must have been one of twin-sisters.  “But,” objected the other, “the same particle occurs also in connection with Benjamin, to say nothing of other instances.”  “Alas!” said Rav Cheyah, “I am possessed of a secret worth knowing, and thou art trying to worm it out of me.”  Then interposed Rav Chama bar Chanena, “The number may be made up by reckoning Jochebed in, for of her it is said (Num. xxvi. 59) ’that her mother bare her to Levi in Egypt;’ her birth took place in Egypt, though she was conceived on the journey.”

Bava Bathra, fol. 123, cols, 1, 2.

Rav Yehudah says in the name of Shemuel:—­There is yet another festival in Rome, which is observed only once in seventy years, and this is the manner of its celebration.  They take an able-bodied man, without physical defect, and cause him to ride upon the back of a lame one.  They dress up the former in the garments of Adam (such as God made for him in Paradise), and cover his face with the skin of the face of Rabbi Ishmael, the high priest, and adorn his neck with a precious stone.  They illuminate the streets, and then lead the two men through the city, a herald proclaiming before them, “The account of our Lord was false; it is the brother of our Lord that is the deceiver!  He that sees this festival sees it, and he that does not see it now will never see it.  What advantage to the deceiver is his deception, and to the crafty his craftiness?” The proclamation finishes up thus—­“Woe to this one when the other shall rise again!”

Avodah Zarah, fol. 11, col. 2.

The Targum Yarushalmi informs us that the Lord God wrought for Adam and his wife robes of honor from the cast-off skin of the serpent.  We learn elsewhere that Nimrod came into possession of Adam’s coat through Ham, who stole it from Noah while in the Ark.  The glib tongue of tradition also tells how Esau slew Nimrod and appropriated the garment, and wore it for luck when hunting; but that on the day when he went to seek