Rabbi Eliezer asked, "For whose benefit were those seventy bullocks intended?" See Num. xxix. 12-36. For the seventy nations into which the Gentile world is divided; and Rashi plainly asserts that the seventy bullocks were intended to atone for them, that rain might descend all over the world, for on the Feast of Tabernacles judgment is given respecting rain, etc. Woe to the Gentile nations for their loss, and they know not what they have lost! for as long as the Temple existed, the altar made atonement for them; but now, who is to atone for them? _Succah_, fol. 55, col. 2. Choni, the Maagol, once saw in his travels an old man planting a carob-tree, and he asked him when he thought the tree would bear fruit. "After seventy years," was the reply. "What!" said Choni, "dost thou expect to live seventy years and eat the fruit of thy labor?" "I did not find the world desolate when I entered it," said the old man; "and as my fathers planted for me before I was born, so I plant for those that will come after me." _Taanith_, fol. 23, col. 1. Mordecai was one of those who sat in the hall of the Temple, and he knew seventy languages. _Megillah_, fol. 13, col. 2. The Rabbis have taught:--During a prosperous year in Israel, a place that is sown with a single measure of seed produces five myriad cors of grain. In the tilled districts of Zoan, one measure of seed produces seventy cors; for we are told that Rabbi Meir said he himself had witnessed in the vale of Bethshean an instance of one measure of seed producing seventy cors. And there is no better land anywhere than the land of Egypt; for it is said, "As the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt." And there is no better land in ail Egypt than Zoan, where several kings have resided; for it is written (Isa. xxx. 4), "His princes were in Zoan." In all Israel there was no more unsuitable soil than Hebron, for it was a burying-place, and yet Hebron was seven times more prolific than Zoan; for it is written (Num. xiii. 22), "Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt." For it is said (Gen. x. 6), "And the sons of Ham, Cush, Mizraim (that is, Egypt), Phut, and Canaan" (that is, Israel). It must, therefore, mean that it was seven times more prolific (the verb meaning both to build and to produce) than Zoan. This is only in the unsuitable soil of the land of Israel, Hebron, but in the suitable soil (the increase) is five hundred times. All this applies to a year of average return, but in one of special prosperity, it is written (Gen. xxvi. 12), "Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him." (The word years, is conveniently overlooked in working out the argument.) _Kethuboth_, fol. 112, col. 1.