SEFER SHMIRAS HALOSHON
? Words of Defeat
? Sifre states:
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With ten trials did our ancestors test [God in the Wilderness], but their judgment was sealed only on account of the sin of loshon hora, as it is written, “They have tested Me these ten times and did not heed My voice” (Bamidbar?14:22),1
and it is written, “You have made Hashem weary [i.e. unrelenting] with your words” (Malachi 2:17).
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The generation of the wicked King Achav was plagued by idol worship; yet they were victorious in war in merit of their not informing on one another (Yerushalmi Pe’ah 1:1). This is evident from the fact that no one revealed to Achav that Ovadiah, aided by others,
was sustaining one hundred prophets of Hashem against the king’s wishes. However, in the days of the righteous Shaul, when informers such as Doeg and the Ziphites5 were found among the Jews, their armies fell in battle. The fact that there were children in
Shaul’s generation who were knowledgeable in forty-nine facets of Torah was not enough to gain them victory. Such is the power of loshon hora.
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? 1. God uttered these words after the Spies had spoken their slanderous report of the land. The Talmud (Arachin 15a) enumerates the ten tests.
