117 myths · Page 2 of 3
Nachshon ben Amminadav sent his whole household out to gather. A man with nothing went out alone. Their two jars measured out the same.
Before any Israelite army reached Canaan, the news from the sea had already hollowed out its kings. A singing well then drew rivers around the desert camp.
The sea drowned Pharaoh and then paid Israel in gems every morning. Moses dragged them away from the treasure, and behind them all Egypt wailed one word.
A king lost three caravans to the serpents of Shur and a woodcutter lost his hair to one glance, yet slaves and infants crossed the same waste untouched.
God orders Rahab to swallow the waters of creation. He refuses and is slain, and then the sea and the earth quarrel over who must take the dead.
Past the divided sea lay a waste of serpents thick as olive-press beams, where a king lost three caravans and a woodcutter lost all his hair.
At the sea Egypts angel pled innocence and wages already paid. Gabriel raised a brick-mold from the bondage, and judgment sat down.
After the tenth plague, Pharaoh forced gold into Hebrew hands and left corpses unburied in his haste. At the sea, fire took the chariot wheels next.
Three months out of Egypt, Israel found water the cattle refused. Doubt opened the door, and Amalek walked through it with swords.
Rabbi Yoshiyah counted four clouds of glory around the camp. Before, behind, above, and underfoot, Israel walked inside a moving shelter of Presence.
At the water's edge the sea scorned Moses as younger than itself. Uzza sued in heaven, Nahshon leaped first, and Pharaoh's six hundred chariots sank.
Three days without Torah turned water bitter at Marah, manna fell hot each morning, and quail arrived at night under a darkened face of heaven.
Cattle had died, yet six hundred chariots rolled. The beasts belonged to Egyptians who feared God, and their fear became Israel's stumbling block at the sea.
Pharaoh learned Israel would not return, the sea crushed Egypt's host, and freed slaves could not stand until angels and fragrance healed them.
Pappus taught that God matched Pharaoh horse for horse at the sea. When Moses ordered a turn back toward Egypt, Israel obeyed without panic.
After the sea closed on Egypt, Israel listed five gifts and asked to return. They hid an idol in the camp, and Moses stopped them by force.
At the sea Moses kindled each phrase and Israel completed it. The Name warred without weapons, and faithfulness turned left hand into right.
A king killed every bandit who had taken his son and still could not rest, because the boy kept telling him what they had done to him.
God detours Israel from the Philistine road. At the sea they enter to their noses, pluck fruit from water walls, and sing as dark yet comely.
Moses sang Az at the sea because alef and zayin make eight, the day of the covenant that tore the waters open.
No two mouths in Israel tasted the same manna. Dathan and Abiram hoarded it overnight and woke to armies of worms.
Trapped between Egypt and the deep, Israel became the dove in the clefts. God asked for her voice, then the sea split and song rose.
The coastal road was shorter. Along it lay Philistine war and Ephraimite bones. God took the people the long way so they would not turn back.
At the sea, fire burns chariot wheels while heavy labor returns on Egypt; clouds of glory still shelter the people who walk free.
R. Yossi counts forty years of manna under Moses and fourteen more after his death, until Canaan's produce fully replaced heaven's bread.
Egypt sells a distant estate for pennies. The buyer digs and finds gold. At the sea, Pharaoh finally chokes on regret.
Pinned between Pharaoh's chariots and the Reed Sea, Israel flings Egyptian idols into the sand, then Moses is told only to go forward.
Moses turns the camp toward Pi-Hahiroth. The sea ahead, Egypt behind, Baal-Zephon left standing on purpose. Some tear their clothes.
On the sixth morning the jars filled twice over and nobody knew why. On the seventh, a few men carried baskets into the sand and came back holding dust.
Three days for Israel, one furious day for Pharaoh. At the sea the people take up the fathers' craft, and the water remembers Egypt's plan.
Chariots at their backs, the people turn on Moses. Death in the open desert, they cry, is worse than bondage with a proper burial.
The people beg to gather just this morning, then just this evening. Moses refuses, and heaven asks how long they will keep refusing rest.
In the study hall Serah bat Asher corrects the sages. The sea walls were mirrors of all Israel. Earth and sea then fight over Egypts drowned host.
A servant picks the lightest penalty for a rotten fish and still pays all three. Pharaoh bargained the same way through every plague in Egypt.
Egypt's horses should have died in the hail. Servants who half-feared the Lord had sheltered them indoors. Those horses pulled six hundred chariots to the sea.
At the sea the Angel of the Lord moved to Israel's rear while the waters stood bound like skins, and God fought with His name, not steel.
After the sea, God went before Israel not only as cloud and fire but as a father with a lantern, lighting the dark for forty years.
Three dry days ended at a bitter pool and a mob against Moses, then a sweetened tree and twelve springs made for tribes not yet born.
Dew covered the camp at dawn. When it lifted, a fine white flake lay underneath that nobody had a name for. Some kept it overnight, and worms got in.
The drivers who once whipped Hebrew backs raced their horses down the dry seabed as if it were a road. Then the water came back and broke the chariots.
From one heaven God rained snares, fire, and stars of war, then soft manna for Israel, while quail fell with a darkened face beside the white bread of the camp.
At Rephidim Joshua weakened Amalek while Moses hands held the sky. Rabbi Eliezer later split one verb into king, family, and armies in full.
At Rephidim Israel's grip on Torah loosens, Amalek arrives like a wolf at a slack rope, and Moses later insists that even war begin with peace terms.
God cradles Israel like a bird in an open palm at the sea, then the song crowns Him king while Egypt lies dead on the shore.
There was no water at Refidim, and the people quarreled until Moses told God they were close to stoning him. Then Amalek came at them out of the hills.
Uncollected manna liquefied under the sun, ran to the Great Sea, fattened clean beasts, and returned to Israel as hunted meat.
Pharaoh's jeweled horses pressed from behind while the sea rose ahead, and Israel cried out like a dove boxed between hawk and snake.
When the dew lifted, Israel found scale-like bread whose letters count to 248 limbs, angel-ground food that left no waste in the body.
