He does not seem to have enjoyed high regard in Israel, for it was taken as a matter of course that Shimon ben Lakish should not do him the honor of addressing him in public in the Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 9b.
After a somewhat prolonged sojourn in Palestine, he returned to Mesopotamia, called Babylonia in Jewish texts, residing both at Pumbedita and at Sura.
While they were there, a Zoroastrian priest (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: חַבְרָא, romanized: ḥaḇrā) suddenly appeared and took the lamp because it was a festival, and Jews were forbidden to have a fire due to its sacredness.
During his residence at the Sura Academy, he wished to introduce the recitation of the Ten Commandments into the daily prayer but was dissuaded by Rav Chisda.
His interpretations of Proverbs 9:3,14 and Isaiah 28:26 in Sanhedrin 38a, 105a also are noteworthy; he said, "The soul of one righteous person is equal in value to the entire world" in 103b.
Among these are his remarks regarding the identity of the most fertile part of Israel—"the land flowing with milk and honey" in Ketubot 111b–112a; the distance between Jericho and Jerusalem in Yoma 39b; the area of the district in the plains of Moab mentioned in the Stations of the Exodus as the camp of the children of Israel in Yoma 75b; and the castor oil plant cultivated in Israel, or the gourd of Jonah, in Shabbat 21a.
One of the most conspicuous figures in these stories is the Arab in Bava Batra 73b, who guided Rabbah and his companions on their journey through the desert.
The Arab showed Mount Sinai to Rabbah, who heard the voice of God speaking from the mountain and regretting Israel's exile.
]Rabbah's stories have called forth an entire literature; in addition to the numerous commentaries on the aggadahic portions of the Talmud that dwell by preference on these accounts, more than twenty essays interpreting and annotating them have appeared in various periodicals.