51 myths · Page 2 of 2
Abraham sent his servant east to find a wife for Isaac. Rebecca watered all ten of his camels, and her family stalled, but she said she would go.
Three years after Sarah dies, Rebecca enters the tent and Isaac's mourning finally breaks. Love turns toward the wife while honor still climbs to the parents.
Isaac's eyes had failed, so he could not leave the tent. Esau's Hittite wives burned incense to their gods in the rooms around him.
He woke in a room that was not his and asked where he was. She sat close enough that the feast was still on his clothes.
A lame man laughed at her in the street. Her hair would go grey, he said, before that shepherd of hers ever became a scholar.
Her husband locked the door unless she spat in Rabbi Meir's face. Meir asked for seven doses, as if his eye were sick.
On his wedding night Rabbi Akiva's son asked for sandals, opened Torah, and left his bride to keep pace until dawn.
A childless couple of Sidon comes for a bill of divorce. Rabbi Shimon sends them to feast first, and she chooses the only treasure that matters.
A woman dreamed her house beam cracked. Students told her she would bury her husband. Their words nearly made it so.
Aaron and Miriam spoke against Moses over his wife. Heaven answered that he alone was ordered to stand apart, mouth to mouth with God.
A man locked his neighbor's silver in a chest and swore it was stolen. Confess first and he repays a fifth more. Wait for witnesses and he pays double.
An Arabian king nearly killed his wife for bearing a white son. Rabbi Akiva pointed to white images in the house and to Jacob's flocks at the troughs.
They traded dresses in a back room. The innocent one swallowed the priest's cup. At the door her sister kissed her mouth and fell.
Judah's firstborn wanted Tamar's face left unchanged by a child. He kept his seed from her. By morning the Lord had closed his life.
A grown educator confesses he cannot stop staring at the woman next door. The infant Ben Sira answers with a coal, a well, and a chase for wisdom.
Sold in a famine year, a Hebrew girl learns the master must give her food, clothing, and time as he would a free daughter, not a tool in his house.
The last son married and left. The man set one cup on the table and called the quiet rest. The second chair stayed against the wall.
On Passover the goldsmith left the Seder table and went downstairs. His wife put her eye to the cellar keyhole and did not cry out.
After civil war, Israel cursed any father who gave a daughter to Benjamin. On the fifteenth of Av the vow loosened and a tribe lived.
A bird dropped a torn ox on the tower roof. Solomon's daughter climbed up at dawn, and a young man stood up out of the carcass.
When Hosea tells God to swap faithless Israel for a better people, God weds him to a harlot and lets him love her children until the words turn back on him.
