[Avodah] Dovid Hamelech had 400 children from yefas toars

[Micha Berger]

On Sat, Mar 15, 2025 at 10:44:12PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote:
> As a tangent, I listen to the shiurim by R Sholom Rosner for daf yomi, and
> he has pointed out a number of times (I can't remember if this is b'shem
> someone else, it probably is) that often the number 400 is used to mean "a
> lot", and not mamesh 400.  We do see a number of incidents in the gemara
> with 400...

And 400 isn't the only such number. 70 serves a similar role, what
after the 70 nations and the 70 BY who went to Mitzrayim. Which is why
we speak of a court that executes once in 70 years...

Many hunter-gatherer cultures use a word like "many" for any number
someone cannot just know by seeing the set. A quantity that needs
conscious counting.

70 likely implies a bigger number than just that. And I presume that
since 400 is greater than 70, I would think that as an idiom for "many",
400 would imply yet more than an idiomatic 70.

I therefore see R Rosner's point as getting the number of sons of Yefos
Toar down to something that doesn't stretch the imagination. But it still
implies a number far greater than would seem consistent with the author
of most of Tefillim.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 If you can't get beyond your stresses, your
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- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                - Dr. Joe Dispenza