9 myths
Tricksters and deceivers in Jewish tradition, from Jacob and Esau to Laban, and the moral ambiguity of cunning.
9 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines deception, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
His mother told him to fetch two goats and lie to his blind father. Jacob's hands shook, his body bowed, and the tears would not stop.
Jacob gave Rachel secret signs so no veil could fool him. Then Laban bought a town's silence, and Rachel handed the signs to Leah.
Laban ran to greet Jacob like a host, but he was hunting for gold. His welcome became twenty years of wages, switches, and traps.
Laban cheated Jacob with wages, wives, and years. The Book of Jubilees tracks every scheme, and the spotted sheep that would not stop multiplying.
Ha-Satan recruited the serpent by flattering it, then sang angelic praises from the wall of Paradise until Eve turned toward the music.
Laban called Jacob his brother though Jacob was his nephew. The word was a bid, not an embrace, and it opened twenty years of systematic fraud.
Pharaoh did not enslave Israel with chains. He did it with wages, flattery, and a shovel pressed into the hands of a willing king.
God told Balaam not to go. Balaam could not say that to the men in his house, so he told them it would be beneath his dignity to travel with men of their rank.
The Gibeonites posed as travelers from far away to trick Joshua into a covenant. He honored it anyway, to show what an oath meant to Israel.
