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 left the ground and found a road in the air no soldier could walk. Zaliah of Dan followed and lost him in the fifth sky.
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.
He could not curse them. So he told Midian to paint the daughters' eyes and set booths outside the camp. Twenty-four thousand fell.
They piled cloaks into a throne outside a locked city. Moses sat. Snakes still held one wall, and Balaam still held the gates.
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.
God named two clocks in one breath. Avenge Midian. Then Moses would be gathered. He heard both clauses and still called for the spears.
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 promised Balaam great honor, then served one ox and one sheep. Across the river, Israel's waters shone with the purple of the cloud.
The black stone sat in the temple like a woman. It had not stopped Sihon. Moab's kings watched Israel camp and counted the fields.
Balaam stacked seven altars and offered rivers of oil. Heaven wanted Israel's small gifts and Aaron's public priesthood.
When Ahithophel spoke, David's court went still. Men set down their cups. No one wanted to argue with a mind that never missed.
The city had a wall of snakes. Moses starved young storks three days, and hunger did what ladders and rafts could not. Not one soldier fell.
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 donkey turned her head and spoke. On the heights Balaam pushed a curse and felt metal stop it. Balak's silver sat unused.
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.
