For the source text click/tap here: Taanit 3
To download, click/tap here: PDF
The proof text from Zechariah: “For I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, says the Lord”
Our Daf clarifies: What is God saying to them? If we say that this is what the Holy One, Blessed be He, is saying to the Jewish people: I have scattered you to the four winds of the world; if so, why did He say, “as the four winds”? He should have said: To the four winds. Rather, this is what God is saying: Just as the world cannot exist without winds, so too, the world cannot exist without the Jewish people. This interpretation of the verse is based on the claim that the winds never cease.
The power of the four winds of the Bible is tremendous, both figuratively and practically. It can churn the great sea, it can uproot and scatter powerful empires (Daniel 7:2, 8:8, 11:4, Zechariah 2:6). The combined power of the four winds of heaven was to be deployed against the nation of Elam, to scatter the people in all directions (Jeremiah 49:36).
We explore the notion of the four winds in antiquity and the curious history of weathervanes.