19 myths
Envy and rivalry in Jewish tradition, from Cain and Abel to Joseph's brothers and the jealousy of the angels.
19 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines jealousy, 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.
Go in unto Hagar, my Egyptian maid: Sarah said it first, and Abraham listened. Years later he sent Hagar off with bread and a skin of water on her shoulder.
Gad pulled a lamb out of a bear's mouth and had to put it down. Joseph went home and told their father the handmaids' sons were eating the herd.
Before Joseph reached Dothan the brothers cycled through plans, including dogs. God heard every word and answered: we shall see whose word stands.
On his deathbed, the patriarch Simeon gathered his children and named the force that had once brought him to the edge of fratricide: not hatred, but envy.
Eve dreamed blood in a mouth. On the Temple mount that would be, Cain divided the world, begged mercy, then rose with a stone.
A suspected wife drank bitter water under oath and curse. If pure, she left unharmed, sometimes to conceive, while fire waited for the guilty.
Cain brought fruit of the ground after some days. Abel brought the firstborn of his flock and their fat. One gift smelled of leftovers.
Herdsmen carried a calf into the slaughterhouse first. Joseph's cry from Egypt pulled Jacob and the stubborn cow of Israel across the threshold.
A priest writes curses, scrapes God's Name into bitter water, and a woman alone in a cleared courtyard must drink while her body waits for the answer.
God built twelve jewel canopies for Adam and led Eve with angel music. After the feast the jealous serpent chose the tree.
Two equal priests sprinted the altar ramp for one sacrifice; a knife found a heart, and a father begged only that the blade stay pure.
Hagar filled with child on the first night, then whispered that Sarah's piety was a sham, while the mistress had waited through ninety empty years.
God did not weigh the two gifts. He weighed the men holding them, and Cain had kept the first and best of his harvest back for himself.
Sarah placed Hagar in Abraham's tent to build a house, then watched the maidservant's eyes change, until contempt and pain split the covenant household.
A scholar raised his son indoors. The father's students took the boy to sea and left him there, and he came home with a princess hidden in a ship.
Two sisters in two cities wore the same face. One was accused, the other went to Jerusalem in her clothes, and the swap held until the doorway.
A husband dragged suspicion to Jerusalem's great court. At Nicanor Gate a priest mixed dust and water while her barley offering held no oil.
Two scholars walk a trembling wife to the priest. Her meal is barley, dry of oil and frankincense, dust and water waiting as witnesses.
Dust from the sanctuary floor mixed with water and erased curses. A woman stood before the priest with a cup that could clear her name or write her as a curse.
