person · P0076
Nachum Ish Gam Zu נחום איש גם זו
Nachum Ish Gam Zu is the archetypal rabbinic figure of radical trust, associated with the phrase "this too is for good." His stories combine miracle, suffering, and moral self-judgment. The Bavli presents him as Rabbi Akiva's teacher and as a man whose physical afflictions followed a failure to respond quickly enough to a poor person.
I. Who
- Hebrew
- נחום איש גם זו
- Also known as
- Nahum of Gamzu, Nachum Ish Gamzo
- Era
- tannaim
- Generation
- T2
- Students
- Rabbi Akiva
II. When
- Traditional
- c. 3770–3860 AM, around the destruction and early post-destruction generations
- Academic
- fl. late 1st to early 2nd century CE.
- Lifespan (traditional)
- ≈90 years
- Precision
- approximate
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nachum was called Ish Gam Zu because whatever happened to him he would say, "This too is for good."
Directly stated in the cited source. |
rabbinic | ★★★★★ | |
| When sent with a chest of jewels to the emperor, innkeepers replaced the contents with dirt; Nachum maintained his formula of trust, and the dirt miraculously became a weapon that won imperial favor.
Aggadic miracle narrative. |
rabbinic | ★★★☆☆ | |
| The Bavli describes Nachum as blind, missing limbs, covered with boils, and living in a house whose collapsing walls were restrained until he was removed.
Aggadic account of extraordinary suffering. |
rabbinic | ★★★☆☆ | |
| Nachum told Rabbi Akiva that he had invoked these afflictions upon himself after delaying aid to a poor man who died before receiving food.
The story is presented as Nachum's moral explanation within the aggadah.
|
rabbinic | ★★★☆☆ | |
| Rabbi Yishmael told Rabbi Akiva, "You served Nachum Ish Gam Zu for twenty-two years," establishing Nachum as one of Rabbi Akiva's teachers and associating him with expansive interpretation of the particle et.
Directly stated in the cited source. |
rabbinic | ★★★★★ | |
| The traditional placement c. 3770–3860 AM, around the destruction and early post-destruction generations, is a schematic Mesorah Atlas reconstruction from his placement as Rabbi Akiva's teacher in the Bavli's narrative world; the cited sources do not state an absolute AM range.
The cited sources establish relative chronology or regnal duration; they do not state the absolute AM range.
|
tradition reconstruction | ★☆☆☆☆ |