117 myths · Page 3 of 4
Joseph planted his own son at the palace gate to record the brothers' names, then closed every grain station but one and goaded them toward war.
After two brothers razed Shechem, an army from Nineveh cut off Jacob's road, and the old patriarch and his twelve sons fought it like a nation.
Their own advisors told the kings to remember what two of Jacob's sons did to Shechem. They marched anyway, and old Jacob killed twelve thousand.
After twenty pounds of silver changed hands, Jacob's sons ran after the Midianites to reverse the sale. The caravan was faster than their regret.
After they threw Joseph in the pit, the brothers sat down to eat. Only Zebulon refused food and kept watch, while Judah blocked a blessing over murder.
Blind with tears for Joseph, Jacob wrote to Egypt's ruler and prayed for two lost sons, never guessing the viceroy was the first.
At Joseph's door the brothers begged like strangers. Benjamin's cup tore their clothes, and Judah heard a rope follow a bucket into the dark.
Guards at the grain gates wrote down every buyer's father and grandfather. Joseph read the lists, waiting for ten names from Canaan to show up.
The cup rose out of Benjamin's sack, planted the night before. Back in the hall, Manasseh stamped his foot once and the whole palace shook.
Jacob's family boarded a crewless ship in a shared dream, Joseph seized both rudders in jealousy, and only the patriarch's whistle raised the wreck.
Judah gave Tamar to Er, then Onan. Heaven struck both sons, and later a dream told a broken man his earnest tears had been heard.
Judah raged over the silver cup until Manasseh's hand cooled him. Benjamin swore innocence by the very crimes that once sold Joseph.
The animals were empires. Babylon wore the lion, Media the wolf, and a later kingdom waited for the bull. Daniel would bring Babylon down.
Tribal princes raced to dedicate the Mishkan, Nahshon of Judah went first because he had plunged into the Reed Sea up to his nostrils.
Joseph locked the storeroom, counted his comfort, and thanked God for the relief. Heaven answered that it was about to set a she-bear on him.
Seventy souls went down into Egypt with Jacob. Two of Judah's sons never made the trip. Jubilees counts the childless dead among the seventy nations.
Jacob called his sons, gave Judah a lion and Joseph an ox, then blessed them together so no tribe owned the ending. Moses later took up the same word.
Asa smashed foreign worship and crushed Zerah by prayer. When Baasha pressed Judah, he bought Ben-hadad with sacred gold and locked the split.
Jeroboam closed the road to Jerusalem and set guards on it, with death for anyone who passed. A second Abijah, his son, took them away and went up himself.
King Amon swore he would revel young and repent old like his father. He burned the Torah, then death cut him off mid-crime with no return.
No slaves through the border. Nobody entering with two donkeys. Every traveler documenting his lineage. The rules were written to make ten men walk in.
Jacob called Reuben firstborn and unstable as water, then summoned Joseph instead of Reuben or Judah to carry his bones up from Egypt.
On the mountain Moses heard every vessel pattern and thought he would build it. God named Bezalel, and Israel built for reward.
Simeon sat in an Egyptian cell. Benjamin clung to Jacob's sleeve. Hunger pressed the house until Judah forced the choice.
Judah talked his brothers into selling Joseph and let his father identify the bloody coat. God told him what the price would be, and it was children.
The worst king of Judah, bent in iron and drowning in idols, bent the knee of his heart until mercy answered captivity.
Judah pledges his share in the world to come so Benjamin may go to Egypt, while Jacob demands purity before the last blessing.
Jebusite idols wear Abraham's covenant mark as a lock on Jerusalem until David smashes the blind and lame gods and takes the stronghold.
David called him teacher. Bathsheba was his granddaughter. His plans arrived whole, like a garment already sewn, and he was thirty-three when he died.
God orders Ezekiel to lie on his left side, then his right, until the prophet's body becomes a bed for the guilt of Israel and Judah.
