478 myths · Page 10 of 16
God waited twenty generations for circumcision. Refuse, and creation folds back to chaos. Abraham said yes, then called captive Lot his brother.
The worlds would have kept expanding forever. God said dai, enough, and the sages heard that word sitting inside the name Shaddai.
A father with two boys, one born Friday and one on the Sabbath, cuts the wrong son on the wrong day. Neighbors hear a child cry on the Sabbath.
Sodom pressed Lot's door for the strangers. He hid angels in a roof beam. God kept silent for Abraham, then overturned the city with one finger.
Scoffers doubted Isaac was hers, so Sarah nursed the nations' infants. Abimelech watched the dark all night after God warned him over the sister-wife.
Terah served idols. His son went into Nimrod's fire before heaven had worked a single wonder for him, and the angels cried out over the flames.
Father and son walked into a city and nobody knew which one to honor. They looked the same age. So Abraham got the first grey hair in the world.
Ishmael was fifteen when he brought the idols home to play with. Abraham was rich in cattle and silver, and sent him out with a loaf and a waterskin.
The tower builders came recruiting. Sit with us, they said, you are mighty, heaven has abandoned us down here. Abraham walked off toward the land alone.
At Mamre three messengers each held one sealed task. At Sodom only two remained, after a court above weighed ruin and Abraham refused a sandal strap of plunder.
A runner reached the oaks of Mamre with the news that Lot was gone. Abraham armed three hundred and eighteen house servants and went after four kings.
Abraham asked who pours blessing back on Levi. God said He blesses the blessers. The priestly lines open wealth, Torah, priests, prophets, and favor.
Abraham cut the animals himself and beat the birds off the meat until dark. God did not offer to promote him. God offered to make him.
Solomon made the shields of gold. Rehoboam replaced them with bronze. The kings kept shrinking until Zedekiah, whose eyes were put out.
Moses comes down blazing and does not know it. Glory clings from the cave, from the gap between hands on the tablets, and from leftover ink on the pen.
Abraham held the world and still asked for the Temple. Jacob's pillow stones became beams. Solomon's house built itself.
Moses finished the Tabernacle in three months, then left it folded three more while mockers scoffed until Abrahams month arrived.
At one hundred Abraham held a son. On Moriah he held a knife. Coming down, he found Sarah dead and paid four hundred shekels for a grave.
Abimelech bowed to Isaac's blessing, then the light left his eyes. Abraham's name poured like oil while patriarchal song was only fragrance on the wind.
Priests wept when pure oil ran short. The lamp blazed harder. Abraham chose exile over Gehinnom (afterlife of judgment) for his children.
At three years old Abraham worked out who had made him. The sages count the letters of a single word and find the exact number of years.
Sarah packed bread and water as if the road were ordinary. Out on the open land Isaac's voice broke her, and even the servants wet the ground weeping.
On the road to Moriah Isaac names the missing lamb. Abraham answers with the truth, and Sarah dies before they reach home again.
Lot leaves Abraham for Sodom's plain, then opens his door to a mob and offers his own daughters rather than surrender his guests.
Noah walked with God like a child holding a father's hand. Abraham was told to walk before God, a lamp bearer sent ahead into darkness.
Abraham laid the altar wood on Isaac's back. Father and son climbed Moriah together, one to bind, one to be bound.
On his last day Moses did the arithmetic and it frightened him. Bilam was called a prophet too. Both of them were going to die.
Do not put your eyes on the money, he told three hundred and eighteen men. If it is silver and gold you want, it is already on your backs.
Abraham feared dying into an idol-maker's house. Heaven told him Terah had turned, and a doubled name sealed the old man for both worlds.
Abraham's stride stretched four miles as he ran to free Lot. He refused Sodom's gold with a raised oath-hand and kept heaven as his only patron.
