166 The Legends of the Jews
consequences. He had to pay heavily for his sins. It came about in this way : While Solomon was occupied with the Temple, he had great difficulty in devising ways of fit- ting the stone from the quarry into the building, for the Torah explicitly prohibits the use of iron tools in erecting an altar. The scholars told him that Moses had use the shamir," the stone that splits rocks, to engrave the names of the tribes on the precious stones of the ephc worn by the high priest. Solomon's demons could give hii no information as to where the shamir could be founc They surmised, however, that Asmodeus,83 king of demons was in possession of the secret, and they told Solomon the name of the mountain on which Asmodeus dwelt, and de scribed also his manner of life. On this mountain there wj a well from which Asmodeus obtained his drinking water. He closed it up daily with a large rock, and sealed it before going to heaven, whither he went every day, to take pai in the discussions in the heavenly academy. Thence he would descend again to earth in order to be present, thougl invisible,*4 at the debates in the earthly houses of learning. Then, after investigating the seal on the well to ascertaii if it had been tampered with, he drank of the water.
Solomon sent his chief man, Benaiah the son of Jehoiadj to capture Asmodeus. For this purposei he provided hii with a chain, the ring on which the Name of God was engraved, a bundle of wool, and a skin of wine. Benaiah drew the water from the well through a hole bored from below, and, after having stopped up the hole with the wool, he filled the well with wine from above. When As- modeus descended from heaven, to his astonishment he
