485 myths · Page 13 of 17
Toward evening they slaughtered. At sunset they began to eat. At midnight, the hour Israel left Egypt, leftover flesh met fire and not the morning.
Abraham came down from Moriah with the knife still heavy in his hand, and found Sarah already fallen, her years counted only from the son she had finally held.
A child asked if the Destroyer could read Hebrew. No one laughed. The father dipped hyssop and told them to keep the door shut.
The whip came down on a Hebrew back in the brickyard. Heaven flinched with him. Job sat in ash and still blessed the Name.
Joseph keeps distance from Jacob's sickbed so no private talk can drag the pit and the sale into a father's curse against the brothers.
At thirty Joseph left prison for a ring, a gold collar, and power so total no Egyptian could arm or ride without his word, then buried grain in caverns.
Jacob asked why his sons feared the road to Egypt. They split across ten gates against the evil eye, then bowed to a bearded stranger who remembered dreams.
The brothers emptied their sacks in Canaan and found every man's money bundled inside. Simeon was still in an Egyptian cell, and the silver looked like a trap.
Jacob refused, then yielded. He packed gum, honey, and double silver, and sent Benjamin south into a house where five portions and first wine waited.
Joseph planted his silver cup in Benjamin's sack, offered the rest peace, and watched Judah refuse a road home that left Rachel's last son in chains.
Pharaoh sent wagons for Jacob's house. God promised His Word would go down to Egypt and bring them up, while Judah went ahead to open study in Goshen.
The brothers saw the empty seat and feared the pit again. Joseph made them swear a doubled word no false deliverer would know.
Pharaoh ran a finger down every name Egypt feared. The Name Moses carried was not written in the Book of the Angels.
Israel was left in Egypt as a deposit in God's care, and Pharaoh reached for what was not his until Moses struck words against him like iron on iron.
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.
Potiphar looked at the traders, then at the boy they were selling, and said out loud that this was no slave. He bought him anyway, and not for the accounts.
Jacob could recite the rescues in his sleep. Esau, Laban, the Canaanites who chased him. He had not kept a line for Joseph.
Pharaoh counted six hundred thousand workers. The midrash answers that only two of that number would finally stand free on the far side of Egypt's night.
Grain jars, door bolts, accounts, the order of the servants: an Egyptian officer's whole house hung on a slave his brothers had sold.
Joseph's brothers invent a grudge from his empty seat. He names their fear, then takes flint himself to circumcise great-grandsons under Egyptian roofs.
Young Moses breaks up a fight between Dathan and Abiram. Years later the same pair stay in Egypt and feed Pharaoh news so he can hunt the freed slaves.
Moses asks Jethro's permission as if only checking on kin. God says the hunters of his life are reckoned dead, and Pharaoh's passion will be made obstinate.
God told them to turn back toward Egypt and camp at the one idol left standing. Under it lay the silver and gold Joseph had stored away.
An Egyptian steals a night from an Israelite house, then raises his whip. Moses turns, judges the man, and buries him in sand before Egypt wakes.
Royal daughters press jewels through wall slits to catch Josephs eye. He keeps his gaze down, and a later Torah law becomes his reward.
The bush burned and made no ash. Moses wanted a name he could carry into Egypt. What he got was a future he had to keep behind his teeth.
Warning after warning strikes Egypt, and Pharaoh hardens himself first. Heaven cooks his heart like twice-boiled liver, while Bitya lives by an old kindness.
Before the first Passover, Israel must circumcise to eat the lamb. Eden winds carry the roast scent, two bloods mingle, and God kisses each doorway.
Egypt paid them in livestock and sent them north. Abram walked past every new hill and stopped at the old pile of stones between Bethel and Ai.
He was brought out of the tent and told to count the stars. He got partway and gave up, and the silence was written down as merit.
