"very little" or "the less," and answers to the word _Hakaton_,
a term of similar import. Samuel, however, died a good Jew (see
Semachoth, chap. 8), and Rabbon Gamliel Hazaken and Rabbi
Eleazar ben Azariah pronounced a funeral oration at his burial.
"His key and his diary were placed on his coffin, because he had
no son to succeed him." (See also Sanhedrin, fol. ii, col. 1.)

Eighteen denunciations did Isaiah make against the people of Israel, and
he recovered not his equanimity until he was able to add, "The child
shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against
the honorable" (Isa. iii. 5).

_Chaggigah_, fol. 14, col. 1.

The Rabbis have related that there was once a family in Jerusalem the
members of which died off regularly at eighteen years of age. Rabbi
Yochanan ben Zacchai shrewdly guessed that they were descendants of Eli,
regarding whom it is said (1 Sam. ii. 25), "And all the increase of
thine house shall die in the flower of their age;" and he accordingly
advised them to devote themselves to the study of the law, as the
certain and only means of neutralizing the curse. They acted upon the
advice of the Rabbi; their lives were in consequence prolonged; and they
thenceforth went by the name of their spiritual father.

_Rosh Hashanah_, fol. 18, col. 1.

Eighteen handbreadths was the height of the golden candlestick.

_Menachoth_, fol. 28, col. 2.

If a man remain unmarried after the age of twenty, his life is a
constant transgression. The Holy One--blessed be He!--waits until that
period to see if one enters the matrimonial state, and curses his bones
if he remain single.

_Kiddushin_, fol. 29, col. 2.

A woman marrying under twenty years of age will bear till she is sixty;
if she marries at twenty she will bear until she is forty; if she
marries at forty she will not have any family.

_Bava Bathra_, fol. 119, col. 2.

At twenty pursue the study of the law.

_Avoth_, chap. 5.

Rabbi Yehudah says the early Pietists used to suffer some twenty days
before death from diarrhoea, the effect of which was to purge and purify
them for the world to come; for it is said, "As the fining pot for
silver, and the furnace for gold, so is a man to his praise" (Prov.
xxvii. 21).

_Semachoth_, chap. 3, mish. 10.

It may not be out of place to append two or three parallel
passages here by way of illustration:--"Bodily suffering purges
away sin" (_Berachoth