When do we learn of a garden-bed, six hand breadths spare, that five kinds of seed may be sown therein, four on the sides and one in the middle? Because it is written, For as the earth bringeth forth her bud and as the barden causeth the seeds sown in it to spring forth [Is. 61:11]. It is not written Its seed, but the seeds sown in it. R. Judah said: “The earth bringeth forth her bud”; “bringeth forth”—one; “her bud”—one; making two. “Seeds sown” means (at least) two more; making four; “causeth to spring forth”—one; making five in all.
Shabbath 9.2 in William Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993), 25.
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