Study Sotah folio 21A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
and then there shall be an extension to your tranquility” (Daniel 4:24). And it is written: “All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar” (Daniel 4:25), and it is written in the following verse that this occurred: “At the end of 12 months” (Daniel 4:26). None of the opinions in the baraita are in accorda
The Talmud answers: Actually, the Mishnah is in accordance with the opinion of R' Yishmael, who states that merit delays punishment for one year, and he found a verse which states and repeats the possibility that punishment can be delayed, indicating that merit can delay punishment up to 3 times,
The Talmud asks: And what does R' Yishmael mean by stating: Although there is no explicit proof for the concept of merit delaying punishment for 12 months, there is an allusion to the concept? The verses he cites state explicitly that punishment can be delayed for 12 months. The Talmud answers: The
§ The Mishnah states: And there is a merit that delays punishment for 3 years. The Talmud asks: Which merit can delay the punishment of a sota? If we say it is the merit of the Torah that she has studied; but a woman who studies Torah is one who is not commanded to do so and performs a mitzva, whos
The Talmud asks: Does the merit of a mitzva protect one so much as to delay her punishment? But isn’t it taught in a baraita: R' Menaḥem bar Yosei interpreted this verse homiletically: “For the mitzva is a lamp and the Torah is light” (Proverbs 6:23). The verse associates the mitzva with a lamp and