4 min read

The Mother Who Left Abraham in a Cave in Jewish Legend

Nimrod had ordered every newborn boy killed. Abraham's mother walked to the desert alone, gave birth in a cave, and made the hardest decision possible.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Emtelai Walks Alone
  2. The Cave at the Edge of the Valley
  3. The Decision at the Threshold
  4. What the Cave Provided

Emtelai Walks Alone

She left the city in the middle of the night, alone, walking toward the desert with nothing but terror and the weight of the child she was carrying. She did not take anyone with her. Anyone who knew would be a witness, and witnesses in Nimrod's kingdom had a way of becoming informants.

Her name was Emtelai, daughter of Karnabo, and she had married Terah knowing what it meant to be the wife of a man who served in Nimrod's court. When her pregnancy became visible, she understood the arithmetic. Nimrod's administration had standing orders: all pregnant women were to register and deliver under royal supervision. All boys were to be killed at birth. The star-reading fifty years earlier had been clear, and the king had responded with a policy that converted the prophecy into a problem he intended to solve by attrition.

Seventy thousand boys had already died. She would not register.

The Cave at the Edge of the Valley

She walked along the edge of a valley until she found a cave and entered it. The next day the birth pains came, and she gave birth to a son alone in the dark. The tradition records what she saw in that moment: the cave filled with light. The light came from the child. It was so strong that it was like the sun rising inside the cave, filling every corner of the space she had hidden in.

She looked at the light and she understood what it meant and what it cost. A child who shone like this was exactly the child the king was hunting. Keeping him alive meant keeping the light hidden. She could not raise a child who filled caves with light in a city where Nimrod's informants moved through every street.

The Decision at the Threshold

She wrapped him in her garment. She spoke to him, though he had been alive for only minutes, because the tradition preserves her words and they deserve to be preserved: she said that it would have been better for her not to have given birth, because the king hunts his life. She told him she could not keep him alive. She kissed him and left him in the cave and went back to the city alone.

This is a woman making a decision that has no good version. She could take him home and watch him be killed. She could leave him in the cave and let the desert decide. She chose the desert. She gave him the only chance available, which was that God might see what she had left.

What the Cave Provided

God saw. On the third day after Emtelai left, an angel came to the cave and provided for the child. The tradition describes the angel making the boy's right thumb flow with milk, and Abraham drawing nourishment from it. He grew with extraordinary speed, the growth that prophetic children in this literature often display, so that within weeks he appeared to be years older than he was.

The light continued in the cave. The child who would later proclaim the living God in the court of the king who had ordered him killed grew up in darkness that he himself illuminated, fed by an angel, unknown to the empire that was looking for him, cared for by the same power his mother had hoped would notice what she had left behind.

AbrahamNimrodBirthCaveFaith
← All myths

From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Legends of the Jews, V. Abraham, The Birth Of AbrahamLegends of the Jews

Legends of the Jews (Ginzberg) turns to The Birth Of Abraham.

In Legends of the Jews, a vast compilation of Jewish folklore by Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, Abraham's birth was anything but ordinary. It was a birth shrouded in fear, prophesied in the stars, and targeted by a ruthless king.

See, Nimrod, the king, wasn't just some ruler. He was a cunning astrologer, and the stars told him a troubling tale: a man would be born who would challenge his authority and expose the falsehoods of his religion. Imagine the paranoia! What would you do?

Nimrod's response, according to this legend, was drastic, to say the least. Driven by terror, he consulted his advisors. Their advice? Infanticide. Build a massive house, gather all pregnant women, and kill every newborn boy. Girls were to be spared and celebrated.

The text describes the construction of this monstrous house – sixty ells high (that’s about 90 feet!) and eighty ells wide (roughly 120 feet!). A chilling symbol of tyranny and fear. Seventy thousand children, the legend says, were slaughtered. Seventy thousand! Can you even fathom such a tragedy?

As Midrash Rabbah poignantly asks, "Is there injustice with God?" (Genesis Rabbah 38:7). The angels themselves were horrified. They cried out to God, "Seest Thou not what he doth, yon sinner and blasphemer...who slays so many innocent babes?"

God, of course, saw. "I neither slumber nor sleep," He responded, "I behold and I know the secret things and the things that are revealed." Justice, it seems, was on its way.

This is where Terah, Abraham's father, enters the story. He was married to Emtelai, and she was pregnant. Three months into the pregnancy, Emtelai began to show, and Terah grew suspicious. He feared breaking Nimrod's decree.

"What ails thee, my wife?" he asked, noticing her pale face and swollen body. She tried to dismiss it, but Terah wouldn't be fooled. He insisted on examining her. But here's where the miraculous intervenes. When he touched her abdomen, the child shifted, hiding beneath her breasts. Terah felt nothing. "Thou didst speak truly," he said, relieved. A miracle, plain and simple.

But Emtelai knew she couldn't hide the pregnancy forever. As her time approached, she fled the city in terror. She found refuge in a cave in the desert. It was there, in that hidden sanctuary, that she gave birth to a son – our father, Abraham.

The cave, it's said, was filled with light from the child's face, a light as brilliant as the sun. Yet, joy was mixed with fear. Emtelai lamented, knowing the danger her son faced under Nimrod's reign. "Better thou shouldst perish here in this cave," she cried, "than my eye should behold thee dead at my breast."

In a heart-wrenching act of both love and desperation, she wrapped the baby in her garment and left him in the cave. "May the Lord be with thee," she whispered, "may He not fail thee nor forsake thee." And so, the future father of a nation, the man who would challenge empires and redefine faith, began his life alone in a cave, his fate hanging precariously in the balance.

What does this origin story tell us? Perhaps it's a reminder that even the most extraordinary lives often begin in the most humble – and perilous – of circumstances. And that even in the face of seemingly insurmountable evil, hope, like a newborn child, can find a way to survive.

Full source
Legends of the Jews 5:5Legends of the Jews

Legends of the Jews turns to Nimrod Read the Stars and Feared Abraham's Birth.

In Legends of the Jews, Terah, Abraham’s father, married Emtelai, the daughter of Karnabo. A simple enough beginning. But this union would produce someone extraordinary.

The real drama began with Nimrod, that infamous king. He wasn't just a ruler; he was an astrologer, a man who believed he could read the stars like an open book. And what he read terrified him. The stars screamed of a man to be born who would challenge his authority, who would expose his religion as a lie.

Think about the weight of that fear. Nimrod, powerful as he was, felt threatened by a baby not even born yet. It's a stark reminder that even the mightiest tyrants can be undone by the smallest spark of truth.

So, what did Nimrod do? He called his advisors, his princes, his governors. "What do I do?" he basically asked. "How do I stop this prophecy from coming true?" Their solution was chilling.

They proposed a horrifying decree: Build a massive house, guarded day and night. Every pregnant woman in the kingdom would be forced to reside there, along with her midwife. And here's the truly awful part: if the child was a boy, the midwife was to kill him at birth. If it was a girl, the mother would be rewarded with gifts and fine clothing, and a herald would announce, "Thus is done unto the woman who bears a daughter!"

Can you imagine the fear, the dread, the desperation that must have gripped the women of Nimrod's kingdom? The idea of having to go to this house to give birth knowing your son would be killed? The helplessness! It was a cruel and calculated attempt to extinguish the light of truth before it could even dawn.

The story of Abraham’s birth, as told in Legends of the Jews, isn't just a historical anecdote. It's a powerful reminder of the lengths to which those in power will go to suppress dissent and maintain control. And it sets the stage for the incredible journey of the man who would defy them all. It begs the question: what seeds of truth are being threatened today?

Full source
Legends of the Jews 5:9Legends of the Jews

It’s a story filled with fear, hope, and divine intervention.

A woman, heavy with child, fleeing in terror. This isn’t just any woman; this is Abraham's mother. And she’s not just running from any danger; she's running from Nimrod, the tyrannical king known for his cruelty.

As her time drew near, she abandoned the safety of the city, venturing into the harsh wilderness. She walked along the edge of a valley, desperately seeking a safe haven. Finally, she stumbled upon a cave, a dark, silent opening in the earth. She entered, seeking refuge from the impending storm – both literal and metaphorical.

The next day, as the sun rose, her labor began. She cried out, and then…a son. The Legends of the Jews tells us something truly remarkable happened next. The cave wasn't just filled with the cries of a newborn. It was filled with light! The child’s face shone with such brilliance that it resembled the splendor of the sun. Can you imagine the relief, the overwhelming joy she must have felt in that moment? She rejoiced exceedingly.

But her joy was quickly overshadowed by fear. As the Legends of the Jews continues, the mother laments, realizing the immense danger her son faces. "Alas that I bore thee at a time when Nimrod is king," she cries. Remember, Nimrod was a ruthless ruler. “For thy sake seventy thousand men children were slaughtered,” she reminds the infant. This detail emphasizes Nimrod's paranoia and the extraordinary threat Abraham posed, even as a newborn. She feared that Nimrod would hear of her son's existence and order his death.

Driven by desperation, she made a heartbreaking decision. "Better thou shouldst perish here in this cave than my eye should behold thee dead at my breast," she says. It’s a mother’s worst nightmare, distilled into a single, agonizing choice. She wrapped him in the garment she wore, a meager protection against the harsh world. Then, with a prayer on her lips, she abandoned him in the cave. "May the Lord be with thee, may He not fail thee nor forsake thee."

This moment of abandonment, born of fear and yet imbued with faith, sets the stage for Abraham's extraordinary journey. It's a story of survival, of divine protection, and of the enduring power of hope in the face of overwhelming adversity. It makes you wonder, doesn't it? What kind of faith does it take to leave your child in a cave, trusting in a power greater than yourself? And what kind of destiny awaited this child, wrapped in a simple garment, alone in the darkness?

Full source