Kesuvos 10:5 - 10:6

הראשונה קודמת לשניה – hers whose time of her Ketubah precedes that of the second, whose time is later, and similarly for all of them.

הראשונה נשבעת לשניה – if the second [wife] claims: “swear to me that you have not collected from my husband anything, for perhaps there will not remain for me from what I will collect my Ketubah and even the third [wife] will claim the same thing to the second [wife] and the fourth [wife] to the third, but the fourth collects without an oath as for example if there is no heir or another creditor who will make her take an oath.

בן ננס אומר כו' – the disagreement of the first Tanna and Ben Nanos is explained in the Gemara (Talmud Ketubot 94a) as in the case where there is found one field from these field that the first three wives have collected which is not his, and it was known that he stole it, and eventually that its owners will come and take it and when the fourth [wife] comes to collect her Ketubah settlement from the fourth field, this one comes and says to her: “tomorrow the person who had been robbed will come and take his field; it is my desire that you will take an oath that you have not collected your Ketubah during the lifetime of the husband”; the First Tanna/teacher holds that the creditor of a later date who came early and collected, what he had collected, he did not collect; therefore, why should she take an oath if the person who was robbed will come and snatch it from this one. Let her return to the fourth [wife] and take from her what she collected, and hence the fourth [wife] would be a creditor of a later date. And Ben Nanos holds that a creditor o a later date who came early and collected what he collected, he has collected, and if she (i.e. the wife who came early) takes possession of this, the third [wife] cannot return to her, and therefore, takes an oath to her that she did not collect anything from the property of her husband and the Halakha is according to the First Tanna/teacher. Of itself, we learn that if she did not take hold of movable property, that she must take an oath, according to everyone’s opinion since there is no precedence as regards to movable property and what she collected, she collected.

וכתבה ראשונה ללוקח וכו' – as, for example when they purchased it from her hand, and in the Gemara (Talmud Ketubot 95a) it raises the question: Could she not say: “I merely wished to oblige my husband (i.e., her purchase was not to be taken seriously)? And it responds, as for example, that the husband sold this field [of his wife] to another man prior to that one, and the wife did not want to endorse it for this one, but she endorsed it for the other, and if it is that it is acting [in a manner that is] obliging to her husband, she would have endorsed the first [sale].

פשרה – adjustment/compromise; not everything to this one, nor everything to that one, and the language of “tepid,” – not hot nor cold.

וכן ב"ח – and two mortgaged properties. Reuven has a claim against Shimon for a Maneh, and he has two fields and sold them to two people – to this one for fifty and to that one for fifty, and the creditor wrote to the second purchaser: “I have nothing against you.” The creditor takes from the hand of the first, for he is not able to say to say to him: “I left you a place that you can collect from him, for his debt corresponds to both, and the first purchaser removes from the hand of the second, and the creditor returns and removes even that from the first, and the second purchaser from the creditor and goes back in turn until they make a compromise.

וכן אשה בעלת חוב – she had her Ketubah on her husband, and he sold his two fields to two [different] people but neither of the two had other than up to her Ketubah, and she wrote to the second [purchaser]: “I have no claim against you and nothing to do with you.” The woman removes from the first purchaser and he removes it from the hand of the second [and the woman from the first] and the second from the woman and the first purchaser from the hand of the second and it goes back in turn [until they make a compromise].