76 myths · Page 2 of 3
Two famous non-Israelite figures stood in Pharaoh's palace when hail struck Egypt. One believed the warning. One did not.
Balaam could not be killed by any weapon, so Phinehas handed the Danite a sword with a serpent cut into both sides of the blade.
Balaam said of himself that he knew the knowledge of the Most High. He could not see the angel in the road, and his donkey could.
Balak paid for a curse. From the mountain Balaam's mouth opened and he saw David, the star from Jacob, and the King Messiah rising at the end of days.
The princes of Moab were still asleep under his roof. Balaam was out in the cold before dawn, tightening the girth with his own hands.
Balaam beat her three times for stopping in the road, then told her he would kill her if he had a sword. The angel in front of them already had one.
After Balaam's eyes were opened, the angel asked about the donkey first, not the curse. The answer reveals what God will do for an entire people.
Balak's ministers waited beside the burning offerings while Balaam went off alone to meet God. What met him opened by calling him an evil man.
Balaam used divination at Pisgah to find where Moses would die, believing he had finally found the pressure point that three hilltops had not revealed.
An orchard whose keeper falls asleep can be emptied before dawn. Balak had paid a man to find that hour. Balaam hunted for it from three hilltops.
A gentile seer who could gaze on the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, shoves past his servants at dawn to saddle his own donkey, hungry to curse Israel.
A shrunken aleph, the first Hebrew letter, and a missing one teach Akiva that God calls Israel in full speech and the nations in half.
Pharaoh dreamed a lamb outweighed Egypt. Balaam urged the Nile. Reuel fled. Job shrugged. The decree learned to drown boys.
Three times the donkey saw what the prophet could not, and the angel said if a beast deserved defense, how much more the nation Bilam rode to curse.
Balaam told Midian that Israel's God hates lewdness. Market booths pulled young men out, twenty-four thousand fell, then the sword found the counselor.
Before Midian, Moses took a besieged Kushite city after serpents and walls blocked its king. He reigned forty years, then refused the queen and left.
Zepho of Kittim won with help from heaven, then kept Esau's idols. When Balaam fled Africa, the king opened his court to dark wisdom.
Midian had sent its women into the camp at Shittim. Moab only hired a prophet. Moses struck Midian first and sent Phinehas, whose spear was already bloody.
Zepho pushed Agnias to invade Egypt and crush Jacob's sons. A fifteen-year-old Balaam sank wax armies in water, and the king canceled war.
Bilam swore no house of silver and gold could move him. Then he stayed another night anyway, hoping God would change the answer.
Balak built fake bazaars full of children, pointed at them as victims, then fed Balaam one ox and one sheep after promising him great honor.
Moab saw Israel take Sihon and Og and assumed the ban on Lot's children would not hold. At Arnon Israel sang the well song Moses would not join.
Balaam stacked seven altars and offered rivers of oil. Heaven wanted Israel's small gifts and Aaron's public priesthood.
Ahithophel's advice never missed, so David's court took it for something close to prophecy. Then he advised Absalom. When the plan failed, he hanged himself.
After nine years of siege and a dead king, Moses starved young storks three days, then loosed them on Balaam's snakes until the city opened.
Balak's oracle-bird scorched as Israel rose. He hired Balaam because prayer, not numbers, was conquering kings he could not match.
Balak sent a bird toward the springs of impurity to fetch older powers. It came back with its wings charred, and the altars kept smoking anyway.
The seer who cannot see beats the donkey that can. A word lodges like a nail. Curses die on the heights; blessings escape; Moab cannot buy the mouth it rented.
Abraham offered one ram, Balaam told Heaven, and I will offer thousands. The rabbis called him a butcher whose shop is already crammed with meat.
An angel blocked Balaam with a drawn sword. He twisted guilt into theology, comparing Gods command and the angels stop to Abrahams knife over Isaac.
