Honi the Circle-Drawer

Honi was a Jewish holy man of the first century BCE, remembered for his prayers for rain. The Mishnah (Taanit 3:8) says that during a drought he drew a circle on the ground, stood in it, and told God he would not leave until it rained. When it drizzled, and then poured, he bargained until the rain came gently. The leading sage Simeon ben Shetah reportedly said he would have excommunicated anyone else for such boldness.

Josephus tells of the same man, whom he calls Onias, a righteous man whose prayer had once ended a drought (Antiquities 14.2.1). During the civil war between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, Hyrcanus' supporters asked him to curse their rivals. He prayed instead that God would grant neither side's prayers against the other, and the crowd stoned him, around 63 BCE.

The Babylonian Talmud (Taanit 23a) adds a legend: Honi met a man planting a carob tree that would bear fruit only after seventy years, fell asleep, and woke seventy years later. No one believed who he was, and he prayed for death. This is a late story, not history.