47 myths · Page 2 of 2
Israel's first king was anointed from a fragile clay flask. A medieval midrash says the vessel already knew his crown would shatter.
Solomon's golden throne was a machine of restrained beasts, and a herald cried a forbidden law at every step he climbed toward judgment.
Solomon could command birds, letters, and kingdoms, but a request to crush five locusts stripped him of divine spirit and wisdom.
Benaiah trapped Asmodeus with wool, wine, and the holy Name, but the demon king turned the road to Jerusalem into a trial of wisdom.
Solomon's court held roses in summer and cucumbers in winter. Kohelet Rabbah then told him there was a time to throw wealth into the sea.
The Torah of Moses had been lost in the Temple so long no one searched for it. When it turned up in the walls, the king who heard it wept.
Solomon's hidden name means gatherer. He carried a clay jar through Jerusalem collecting one Torah line per sage, one trait per visit, one warning per king.
Each month an official staged races, gilded lions breathing perfume, and a throne that roared, until the wisest king ruled by dazzling the eye.
Thirty-three steps of gold, lions and eagles that moved, and six steps of justice that tested whether a king deserved to sit and judge at all.
Every midnight the north wind played David's harp above his bed. He rose, studied until dawn, and composed in the hour when Egypt's bondage had cracked open.
Before David faced Goliath, Jewish legend placed him on the horn of a giant re'em, trapped between a mountain-sized beast and a lion below.
Doeg uses his tongue to destroy a city of priests, but David, trained as a shepherd, guards Torah and refuses to act in anger.
Vashti's banquet mirrored Ahasuerus in treasure and theft. Esther Rabbah hears one small word announce that her borrowed hour had ended.
Haman’s rise looked like success, but Esther Rabbah says the height was part of the sentence. God lifted him so the fall could teach the empire.
Pharaoh told the Nile he had made himself, so God crowned Moses a rival god and four kings learned the divine crown is a noose.
A Persian king dreamed of a rose garden soaked in innocent blood, saw one rose tree survive his blade, and woke to find the heir he could not kill.
History's first universal king was not satisfied ruling the world. He needed the world to worship him, so he built a structure designed to look like heaven.
