518 myths · Page 2 of 18
Moses had faced Pharaoh without flinching. But Sihon the giant made him afraid. The rabbis explain what God had to do before the battle could begin.
Ezekiel saw four creatures whose wings sounded like rushing water. Then the wings went slack. They were not resting: their legs are straight and do not bend.
God said he would rain down on Sodom. The rabbis found a hidden offer in that word: rain can be water or fire. Sodom chose fire.
On the way to heaven, Azazel appeared and tried to turn Abraham back. The angel Iaoel gave Abraham the only words that would work.
Esau came up the road with four hundred armed men. Something met them on that road in the night, and Jacob went to his grave not knowing.
God warned them that the pull toward their own desire would rise in them too, down there in bodies. They went anyway. Azazel crafted the paint and the gold.
Pharaoh took Sarah into his palace and an angel appeared with a rod. Before striking, the angel stopped and asked the woman what she wanted done.
Abraham told his servants that he and the boy would both come back down. Mastema watched to see if the father would break. The ram was already in the thicket.
Gabriel made milk flow from his finger for the abandoned infant Abraham. Decades later he carried the same man on his shoulder into Nimrod's capital.
God sent Michael to inform Abraham that his time had come. Michael went, came back to heaven, and asked God to find another way.
Every nation has its angelic prince standing watch. Israel has no such guardian, and the keeper who keeps it will not slumber or sleep.
The Torah gives Enoch one sentence. 2 Enoch gives him seven heavens, two thousand witnesses, and a departure that left his sons weeping in the snow.
Abraham was ninety-nine and three days past his own circumcision, sitting in the midday heat. He got up and ran to fetch butter, milk, and a tender calf.
Eve stands outside the gate of paradise begging heaven for relief while Adam lies dying inside and two angels keep watch at the door.
Seven Amorite kings march on Jacob's tents after Shechem burns, and only Judah's words about Noah stand between the family and the swords.
A bush burns and will not burn away. The voice calls Moses, and Moses answers it with a question about Lot, Hagar, and the angels they got.
Trapped between Pharaoh's chariots and the sea, Israel faced a second hunter in heaven: Samael the accuser, whom God quieted by throwing him Job.
Enoch's angelic guides abandon him at the threshold of the tenth heaven. He falls to the ground in terror. Then God calls him to come closer.
The chariot of fire was harnessed and the whirlwind was ready. The angel came down, found two men arguing over a teaching, and could not make either look up.
A trumpet splits the sky over Eden. A chariot of cherubim descends. Adam crouches in the leaves while the dead trees burst alive around the Tree of Life.
Eve begged to lie beside Adam, but only Seth had seen the grave. So an archangel came down to teach the first burial.
A sword sharp beyond compare came down on Moses's neck ten times and could not cut it. Then an angel climbed the scaffold dressed as the executioner.
When Haman fell onto Esther's couch, an unseen archangel had pushed him, and ten angels in the king's garden were felling trees to time it.
Two demons offered to scout Jericho for Joshua. He would not trust a word they said, so he twisted their faces and sent them ahead to scare the city.
The angel gave him three jobs instead of an answer. Weigh the weight of fire. Measure out a measure of wind. Call back the day that is past.
When Benjamin went to Egypt, Joseph pulled him aside and asked what their brothers had told Jacob. The answer revealed a mercy his brothers never knew about.
A three-year-old lifts Pharaoh's crown onto his own head, and an angel hidden among the wise men proposes a coal to decide whether the child lives or dies.
When the angel of a rival nation rises to accuse Israel before the throne, Michael and Gabriel step forward to argue the other side.
When God formed Adam and commanded the angels to honor him, Ha-Satan, the Accuser, refused. Formed from fire, he would not bow before dust.
In the fourth palace of heaven, thousands of angels gather at Sabbath tables. An angelic overseer watches to see who rejoices and who does not.
