41 myths · Page 2 of 2
By nightfall Sarah was lying face down on the floor of Pharaoh's house, and an angel stood over the king with a whip, waiting for her to say the word.
Over Sarah's body Abraham calls himself stranger and resident at once. He buys Machpelah for full silver, and four couples will sleep folded in its stone.
Grief kept Joseph out of the throne room. The second man in Egypt sent his request through clean-shaven mouths. Then a coffin pulled the court toward Hebron.
Until forty, Akiva could not read a single letter. He tended flocks. Then he found a stranger's body in a field, unclaimed, with birds already at work.
Ephron offered the cave as a gift. Abraham would not take it. A gift can be taken back. Silver stays in the deed.
After stoning, the body hung only while daylight still saw it. Leave it overnight, the sages warned, and the Name itself would be cursed in the street again.
The poor farmer walked down the mountain with juice still on his fingers and nothing else. The rich man's gold basket clicked against his belt.
A Nazirite under vow finds a corpse with no kin. He may not touch the dead for father or mother, yet he must become impure for the unburied stranger.
On his deathbed Jacob forced his body upright for Joseph the viceroy, begged the holy spirit for the blessing, and bound his bones to Machpelah.
Feeling death draw near, Jacob binds Joseph by oath to carry him home to Canaan, and armed kings who came to raid his funeral leave their crowns on his coffin.
At a hundred forty-seven, a day was the shadow of a bird. Jacob would not lie in Egyptian ground. He made Joseph swear before he would close his eyes.
