72 myths · Page 2 of 3
Elijah hands a boy the burning stones of future Jerusalem, while a coin to a blind beggar and a shrug decide two travelers' fates on the road.
After the Temple burned, God sent prophet after prophet to console Jerusalem. Each one was sent away. Then God stopped sending messengers and came himself.
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 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.
Before the Chaldeans enter Jerusalem, angels carry the Temple vessels into the earth, where they wait sealed until the last times.
Climbing toward the ruins, Jeremiah finds a woman weeping on the mountaintop, and her grief turns out to be the city he came to mourn.
God showed the scribe Baruch twelve woes and a vine that toppled the last empire, then named the Messiah who would drag its king to Zion.
When God commanded Gabriel to destroy Jerusalem, the angel lifted the coals and then held them there for six years, waiting to see if the city would turn.
The richest woman in besieged Jerusalem sends her servant for bread until nothing is left, then eats a fig skin from the gutter and dies in her gold.
No fallen city could equal Jerusalem, so God sent no deputy into exile with Israel. Only the one who lit the fire could pay what was owed.
At the last war the Lord stands on the Mount of Olives, the mountain tears north and south, and a valley opens for Jerusalem to flee.
God can speak from anywhere. The rabbis believed he would end the story in one place only, and pinned the final act to a specific mountain.
Rabbi Levi counts seven blessings that flow from Zion, from Torah and life to beauty and salvation, while a sword waits beside the book.
Their father went into the earth. The sea split for people who had not earned it. Korah's children ask what the Exodus left for those who only inherited it.
Adam settles on Mount Moriah after Eden because the gate he can no longer enter is close, and the place of return becomes the place of the Temple.
David's heart gives out far from home, a hidden rock stands higher than he is, and God performs rescues that even the rescued person never learns about.
God and Israel accuse each other of abandonment, then God gathers the scattered from wilderness and sea and rebuilds Jerusalem.
People ask David when he will die so Solomon can build the Temple, but David finds a way to rejoice even as he waits for a house he cannot build.
Sennacherib surrounds Jerusalem and the Midrash asks whether God's perfect way holds when nations close in like bees around the city walls.
Athenians come to Jerusalem to mock its ruins and are outwitted by small children who turn every trap into a lesson about seeing clearly.
Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah all say the same word across centuries, and when Jerusalem finally falls, the word arrives as a wound no one saw coming.
God drew a measuring line over Jerusalem's wall before the first stone fell. The prophets had one chance to stop it and chose soft words instead.
Jerusalem's castles could hold fifty days. Eikhah Rabbah says God reassigned the angels at each gate, and the city learned too late.
Cedar trees hauled to Babylon wept for their homeland, and Jerusalem's tarnished gold still hid a fire that exile could not extinguish.
Eikhah Rabbah follows Jerusalem's wealthy through the siege from golden baskets lowered over walls to the shame of being called impure in the nations.
Eikhah Rabbah turns Athens and Jerusalem into a contest of riddles, trade tricks, Temple knowledge, and a one-eyed slave who sees farther than scholars.
Eikhah Rabbah faces the siege famine through children who remembered abundance, a stream that ran dry, and women who gave away their last loaf to a mourner.
Nebuchadnezzar caught a disrespectful letter and ran to fix it. He took three steps. Gabriel stopped him. Those steps were the reason he rose to power.
Fasting in a field, Ezra sees a mourning woman become a city of light, an eagle devour the earth, then a man rising from the sea's deepest heart.
