At the time God said to the serpent, "Upon thy belly thou shalt go" (Gen. iii. 14), the ministering angels descended and lopped off his hands and his feet. Then his voice was heard from one end of the world to the other.
When God said to the serpent, "And upon thy belly thou shalt go" (Gen. iii. 14), the serpent replied, "Lord of the universe! if this be Thy will, then I shall be as a fish of the sea without feet." But when God said to him, "And dust shalt thou eat," he replied, "If fish eat dust, then I also will eat it." Then God seized hold of the serpent and tore his tongue in two, and said, "O thou wicked one! thou hast commenced (to sin) with thy evil tongue; thus I will proclaim it to all that come into the world that it was thy tongue that caused thee all this."
"And Noah only remained" (Gen. vii. 23), except Og, king of Bashan, who sat on a beam of the ladders (which projected from the ark), and swore to Noah and his sons that he would be their slave forever. Noah made a hole in the ark through which he handed to Og his daily food. Thus he also remained, as it is said (Deut. iii. 11), "For only Og, king of Bashan, remained."
"Unto Adam and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins" (Gen. iii. 21), viz, to cover their nakedness; but with what? With fringes and phylacteries, "Coats of skins," viz, the leathern straps of the phylacteries; "and they sewed fig-leaves" (Gen. iii. 7), viz, fringes; "and made themselves aprons," this means the proclaiming of the Shema, "Hear, O Israel," etc.
The aprons, which some (as Rashi, for instance) take to denote furs, the Targum of Jonathan says were made "from the skin of the serpent." The wardrobe of Adam afterward came into the possession of Esau and Jacob (see Targ. Yon. in Toledoth, and p. 199, No. 161, _ante_).
All the presents which our father Jacob gave to Esau will one day be returned by the nations of the world to the Messiah, and the proof of this is (Ps. lxxii. 10), "The kings of Tarshish and the isles shall return presents." It is not written here, "They shall bring," but they shall restore or return.
A philosopher once posed Rabbi Eliezer with the question, "Does not the prophet say (Mal. i. 4), 'They shall build, but I will throw down'? and do not buildings still exist?" To which the Rabbi answered, "The prophet does not speak of buildings, but of the schemes of designers. Ye all think to contrive and build up devices, to destroy and make an end of us, but He bringeth your counsels to nought. He throweth them down, so that your devices against us have no effect." "By thy life," said the philosopher, "it is even so; we meet annually for the purpose of compassing your ruin, but a certain old man comes and upsets all your projects" (namely, Elijah).