200 myths · Page 4 of 7
Rabbi Akiva fixed who carries a hard legal status, while a fig-tree parable showed that only God knows when to gather the righteous.
Heaven punishes the angels before the nations, Moses cross-examines God about the land, and even the timing of death bends around the covenant's terms.
A guardian angel sees the eye-covered Angel of Death arrive, and five angels descend into the grave to collect the Torah a dead man never lived.
A Levite stopped in a Benjamite city and the men surrounded the house. By dawn his concubine was dead and Israel was at war with one of its own tribes.
Deborah's song rose over Sisera's drowned chariots, and a tavern parable explained the music, the glutton's own appetite breaks his teeth.
Saul kept King Agag alive a single night instead of killing him in battle, and from that night Amalek lived on to threaten every Jew in Persia.
Samuel was the most incorruptible judge Israel ever had. His sons took bribes. The story does not end there: one of them became the prophet Joel.
Four hundred armed men were marching toward her husband's estate. Abigail rode out alone to meet them, armed with a point of law.
Amnon claimed a right to marry Tamar. The rabbis traced his argument to when her mother converted and what that meant for children born before.
When Saul lost divine favor, the watcher angels shifted roles. Their change from observers to enforcers was the first sign that his protection was gone.
Samuel mourned for Saul until the day Samuel himself died. He had made the king and he watched what the king became. The grief was his own making.
Every spirit the witch of Endor summoned came up bent over. Samuel rose standing straight. She recognized immediately that she had pulled up someone different.
After the Red Sea closes over Egypt's army, sea and earth argue over the corpses while God swears an oath to break the deadlock.
Before Cain raises his hand, he and Abel argue whether the world is governed justly at all. The post-flood law on murder closes the argument centuries later.
Solomon's golden throne was a machine of restrained beasts, and a herald cried a forbidden law at every step he climbed toward judgment.
Seven fiery chambers where lions eat the dead and begin again, traitor-kings warden the nations, and scorpions with countless mouths lash the prostrate.
When Ahab mocked the prophets and the decree against Israel was sealed, Elijah did not pray alone. He ran to the fathers of the world for help.
Babylonian envoys came to honor the king's God. So Hezekiah opened the Ark, pointed at the tablets, and boasted that they won his wars.
A boy of eight inherits a kingdom his father nearly destroyed, reunites Israel for the first time in centuries, and dies in a battle he had no reason to fight.
Pharaoh marked the men fated to die and shipped them off to build Solomon's Temple. Solomon sent them home wearing the shrouds Pharaoh planned to bury them in.
God told Solomon to ask for anything. Solomon asked only to judge his people. What God gave him in return was everything he had not asked for.
Phinehas drove the spear at Peor, earned eternal priesthood, reappeared as Elijah, tested brothers in a garden, and still guards the seder cup.
Benaiah trapped Asmodeus with wool, wine, and the holy Name, but the demon king turned the road to Jerusalem into a trial of wisdom.
Elisha received twice Elijah's spirit, but Gehazi turned the prophet's house into a hiding place for silver, garments, and leprosy.
Solomon thought the yod in one Torah verse could not apply to a king as wise as himself. The letter rose and accused him before God.
A man with two heads stood in Solomon's court demanding a double share of his father's estate. Both mouths were talking. Solomon ordered hot water.
A serpent arrived in court with a man's neck in its coils and a verse from scripture as its legal brief. Solomon stripped it of the advantage.
Two men were lurking near the palace walls. Solomon put on servant's clothes, introduced himself, said he had a key, and proposed a robbery.
The Torah gave kings three specific prohibitions. Solomon knew all three and violated all three. His reasoning was brilliant. His reasoning was wrong.
Solomon's legendary throne was not just a seat of power. It moved, tested every visitor, and punished rulers who lied before it.
