Main Text
From Sefaria:
English Translation
Chilazon — [hailstone]
Bekhorot 38: “If he had in his eye a thin fixed blemish: chilazon, snake, or grape…”
The Gemara says: “Chilazon — this is a fixed blemish on account of which it may be slaughtered, and this is ‘snake.’”
Explanation: his eye is speckled like a snake.
And some explain that chilazon is a tevalul. And the Babylonian Targum renders it: “a blemish in his eye,” and the Jerusalem Targum renders it: chilazona.
A.B.: Its explanation in Greek is “hail.” This is the name of a small, round, clear swelling, like a hailstone, between the eyelid and the eye, or in the eye itself.
Chilazon — [snail]
Kelim, chapter 12: “Or if he tied a chilazon to its head, it is impure.”
Explanation: this refers to its shape, and it is called chilazon, like the chilazon which is surrounded / enclosed.
A.B.: The author of the Aruch drew in his book the form of a chilazon. He did likewise regarding “an axe whose blade/socket was removed”; see the entry בקע, section 3.
Chilazon — [snail]
Sanhedrin 91: “Go up to the mountain and see that today there is not even one chilazon there; but tomorrow, rains descend, and the entire mountain becomes filled with chilazonim.”
Jerusalem Targum: “The tzelatzal shall inherit it” — chilazona.
Pesikta, ‘Vayehi Beshalach Par‘oh’: “And they did not grow.” He said to them: “This chilazon, so long as it grows, its casing grows together with it.”
Chilazon
Shabbat 26: “Yogvim” — these are the trappers of the chilazon, from the Ladder of Tyre until Haifa.
Shabbat 75: The Rabbis taught: “One who traps a chilazon and pierces / squeezes it is liable for only one transgression.”
Megillah 6: They said to him: “By your life, all of them will need you, through the chilazon.”
Menachot 44: The Rabbis taught: “This chilazon — its body resembles the sea, its form resembles a fish, and it comes up once in seventy years. From its blood they dye tekhelet; therefore its price is expensive.”
A.B. (R. Benjamin Mussafia comment): This one too: its casing grows together with it.
