wish to ascertain whether they have fulfilled the conditions under which a reward was promised to them.
175 As the cause of this, Noah remarks: “The inhabitants of the city of Ai” (עי; ע׳=עורב “raven”; י׳=יונה “dove”) will slay Jair, because he permitted the use of the meat of the raven, but prohibited that of the dove (comp. Sanherdin 100a, top) in contradiction to the Torah”. Comp., however, vol. IV, p. 8 with reference to the piety and learning of Jair.
176 This suspicion against Noah is already found in older sources, comp. note 46 on vol. I, p. 164. See further PRK (Schönblum’s edition), 32b.
177 This supposed peculiarity of the raven is already mentioned in Aristotle’s Historia Animalium, V, 47, and by many classical authors; comp. Bochart, Hieroz., III, 818, as well as Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmuds, 173. According to Barnabas, 10.8, it is the weasel which is impregnated through the mouth. This, however, inaccurately reproduces the statement of Aristeas 165, according to which the Bible has prohibited the enjoyment of this animal because it is impregnated through the ears and gives birth through the mouth. This widespread view is also mentioned by Aristotle in De Generatione Animalium, III, 6.5 who, however, scoffs at it. A statement similar to that of Barnabas concerning the annual change of sex of the hyena is found in medieval Jewish writings, but not in the old rabbinic literature. Concerning the hare (ארנבת), comp. Ibn Ezra on Lev. 11.6. Related to this view is the quotation in Pa‘aneah, Lev. 12.2 from PRE (not found in our text) that the stomach of a hare is a cure for sterility. R. Eleazar, Rim e Haftarot, Naso, explicitly states that this cure, which the women recommended to Samson’s mother, and against which the angel warned her (Jud. 13.7), is due to the peculiarity of this species to change its sex. It is highly probable that Pa‘aneah introduced the quotation with the words בפ׳ ר׳ אליעזר, that is “in the commentary [on the Haftarot] by R. Eleazar [of Worms]”; but the scribe misread the abbreviation בפ׳ (=בפרוש) as בפרקי, and hence בפרקי ר׳ אליעזר. For further remarks on the raven, comp. the following note.
178 2 Alphabet of Ben Sira 26b–27a and 34a–35a. The older sources (Sanhedrin 108b; BR 36.7; Yerushalmi Ta‘anit 1, 64d; Tan. Noah 12) state that three were punished because they did not observe the law of abstinence while in the ark (comp. vol. 1, p. 166): Ham, the dog, and the raven. Ham became the ancestor of the black
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