268 myths · Page 5 of 9
Every prophet went to comfort Zion after the destruction. Every one was turned away. Then the patriarchs tried. Then God came personally. Then Isaiah.
For three and a half years the divine presence stood east of Jerusalem calling the city back, and the city treated the call like weather.
Ten tribes taken by Assyria in 722 BCE never came back. The rabbis found one Hebrew word in Psalm 147 promising that even the most expelled can be gathered.
The captives are not yet home when the wilderness brightens to receive them. A cloud of glory forms over their heads before Jerusalem comes into view.
Jeremiah saw Edom fall to small shepherds, but the rabbis said Joseph and Benjamin alone could silence Esau and answer his accusation.
Jeremiah tried to refuse the prophetic call, but God placed the cup of wrath in his hand and sent Jerusalem to drink first.
Jeremiah walked with the exiles to the Euphrates, then turned back so God would go with them into Babylon through the dark.
Jeremiah asked God four charges after Jerusalem fell. Two were answered at once, and Zion carried the other two into her own argument.
Pharaoh's fleet was sailing north to break the siege. Then God filled the water with drowned Egyptian ancestors, and the fleet turned back.
The prophet sank in mud and lime, and a voice called his name. He had been mocked too many times to trust a friendly sound. He did not answer.
Jerusalem did not fall because Babylon was stronger. It fell after Jeremiah left the city and an angel stood on the wall to invite the enemy in.
After the Temple fell, God sent Jeremiah to wake the Patriarchs from their graves. Jeremiah lied to them. He feared they would blame him for what had happened.
Before Jerusalem fell, God gave Jeremiah one task that had nothing to do with prophecy. He rebuked anyone who tried to mark the spot where the Ark was hidden.
The Temple is burning and the priests have fled. One figure stands in the ruins with no right to be there, refusing to go until God answers him.
After the First Temple fell, Jeremiah was sent to wake Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses from their rest. He could not make himself tell them the truth.
Before the Chaldeans enter Jerusalem, angels carry the Temple vessels into the earth, where they wait sealed until the last times.
While Jeremiah prayed in Jerusalem the city stood. When he went to Benjamin the protection lifted. He returned to walk into exile beside the captives.
God gave Jeremiah a choice: go to Babylon or stay in the ruins. The prophet chose the ruins and spent his days collecting what the swords had left behind.
Jeremiah climbs the bloodied road and finds a woman weeping in black over empty cradles, and she is the burned land herself, the one God keeps His glory for.
Babylon came to loot the scribe of Jeremiah, but the deadly grave, the gold-dusted grass, and the holy dead turned the robber into a Jew.
In Babylonian exile, Ezekiel watches the sky tear open. Fire, wheels full of eyes, and four impossible creatures arrive bearing the throne of God.
Ezekiel gave an uncertain answer about rescue. The three men declared they were ready to die regardless. That declaration was when the rescue became certain.
God addressed Ezekiel as ben adam, son of man, beside the Chebar River in exile. Vayikra Rabbah says the word was not a warning but an act of affection.
Ezekiel received his vision on a Babylonian riverbank, in the heart of Israel's worst defeat, and the rabbis could not quite absorb it.
Jehoiachin surrendered to save Jerusalem. Zedekiah was blinded by his own tears. Ginzberg gathered the legends behind the fall of Judah.
Targum Jonathan counts sixty-four faces and 256 wings on the throne. Ezekiel watches the glory move out through the east gate and waits for it to return.
The Book of Tobit opens with Israelites in exile celebrating while the Temple lies in ruins. One man refuses to join them. That refusal is the story.
Tobit came from Naphtali, first tribe dragged into exile by Assyria. His faithfulness in Nineveh was a one-man correction of his people.
After years of exile and blindness, Tobit asked God to take his life. The prayer was answered, but not with death. God already had something else in motion.
Nineveh's king ordered children separated from nursing mothers and animals from their young. The sound of the city crying out together could not be dismissed.
