Lesser History of the World (Seder ‘olam zuta)

In the eleventh year of the reign of [Jehoiakim], Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylonia, exiled [Jehoiakim], and he died in captivity to fulfill that which was written: He will be buried with the burial of a donkey (Jeremiah 22:19). [ . . . ] And his son Jehoiachin ruled after him for three months and ten days, [ . . . ] and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylonia exiled him and eighteen thousand with him. [ . . . ] The people of Judah were exiled from their land in the 850th year since entering the land and 890 years since the exodus from Egypt and 3,338 years since the creation of the world. And the only one left from the house of David was Yehoniyahu alone. He bore Shealtiel. [ . . . ] The sages guided him in the exile. [ . . . ] And Shealtiel died, and his son Zerubbabel took his place in the fifty-two years since the destruction of the Temple. [ . . . ] Darius the Persian ruled and wiped out the kingdom of the Babylonians, and Zerubbabel went to Jerusalem. [ . . . ] His son Meshullam ruled after him, and in his days the kingdom of the Greeks ruled. [ . . . ]

Alexander the Macedonian, king of the Greeks, ruled for twelve years, and Meshullam son of Zerubbabel died, and his son Ḥananiah after him. [ . . . ] R. Huna, R. Ḥananah, R. Matna, and R. Ḥananel were his sages. [ . . . ] And R. Huna died and was buried in Israel near R. Ḥiyya Rabbah. [ . . . ] Nathan, his son, ruled and was guided by the sages. R. Judah bar Ezekiel and R. Sheshet were his sages. [ . . . ] And the Persians instituted a decree against the Jews. [ . . . ] And in this way the House of David was annihilated, and thus it was that the wife of R. Huna, the exilarch, was the daughter of Mar R. Ḥanina, the head of the academy. [ . . . ]

A judge from the [court of the] exilarch went to the city of R. Ḥanina, the head of the academy, and desired to give a sermon. But [R. Ḥanina] did not allow him, and the matter came before the exilarch, who ordered and sent [a message] to R. Ḥanina, the head of the academy. [The exilarch] commanded that he wait outside the town gate all night. The next day, [R. Ḥanina] came, and [the exilarch] commanded that they shave off his beard and that no one give him a place to stay. R. Ḥanina, the head of the academy, went and sat in the great synagogue. He sat and wept and brought a plague upon the house of the exilarch, and they all died in a single night [except for] Mar Zutra, who remained in his mother’s womb.

R. Ḥanina saw in a dream that he entered a garden of cedars, took an axe, and cut down all the trees, leaving only a single small [zutra] cedar in the ground. He lifted his axe to chop it when an old man came and said to him, “I am David, king of Israel, and this garden is mine! Why are you chopping it down?!” He hit him and turned his face away.

He awoke and turned his face away. He said to the rabbis, “Only one [person] is left of the House of David!” They said to him, “No one is left except for your daughter in the west.” He went and slept at her gate in rain and sun until she gave birth. And when she gave birth, the child’s countenance was straight. R. Ḥanina took him and taught him and transformed him into a great man [named Mar Zutra].

There was a son-in-law of the House of David named Bar Paḥda, and when he saw that the [people of the] House of David died, he took money and bribed the king to make him the head [of . . . ]. When Mar Zutra was fifteen years old, he and the head of the academy went to the king and took the authority away from Bar Paḥda. And a fly entered Bar Paḥda’s nostril, and he died. Because of this, the House of David depicts a fly on its seals.