230 myths · Page 5 of 8
Joshua marched through the night, saw daylight failing, and spoke the divine Name until the sun and moon stopped over Gibeon and Aijalon.
No horse, donkey, or mule could carry Joshua's weight into battle, so a steer bore him to Jericho and kept its mark forever.
Before Joshua crossed the Jordan, his name was encoded into the first day of creation. The rabbis who found this were not surprised. They expected it.
A barred city, a stranger with a naked blade, and the night Joshua learned who was truly commanding the war for the Land.
Gideon hid wheat from Midian, argued for Israel on Passover night, broke his father's idol, and watched dew answer twice.
A man consecrated to God kills a lion with his bare hands, returns to find bees nesting in the corpse, and turns the secret into a wedding bet.
A judge of Israel swore to sacrifice whatever came through his door first after his victory. His daughter came through dancing with timbrels.
Israel's only female judge sat under a palm tree and handed down rulings, then sent a reluctant general to face Sisera's nine hundred iron chariots.
He had lied to her three times and escaped three times. On the fourth asking, he was exhausted and told her everything she needed to destroy him.
When Moses died, 1,700 teachings vanished from Israel's memory, and Othniel son of Kenaz rebuilt every one of them by sheer force of argument.
Jacob travels from Laban's fields to Esau's border, escorted by angel armies, yet arrives at the Jabbok wounded and still afraid.
Hadrian strides into the Holy of Holies to revile God to His face, and a king dead a thousand years rises from the psalms to answer him.
David studied Torah in peace because Joab held the borders, ran the Sanhedrin, and once bought a poor man's child to test a verse.
Samuel heard his name in the sanctuary night and ran to Eli three times before the old priest taught him how to answer God.
David chose five stones at the brook, but the midrash makes the whole created world hurry into his hand before Goliath fell.
A king stripped away his royal garments and leaped in the street before the Ark. From her window, his wife watched and felt nothing but contempt.
The Ark lurched on the road to Jerusalem. Uzzah reached to save it, and David learned that holy things do not survive by instinct.
David demanded to be tested the way the patriarchs were tested. Heaven obliged. A bird, a broken screen, and a woman on a rooftop followed.
His own men flung Joab over the enemy wall, his sword snapped against their armor, and the blood of the slain glued the next blade to his hand.
Saul grabs the prophet to keep him, the cloth rips, and the sages cannot agree whose robe tore, the king he unmade or his own.
The rabbis counted six fires that break the rules of burning. Then a mountain of flame found David asleep in a forest and refused to consume him.
Every river pours into the sea, yet it never fills, and the sages chase the missing water down to the abyss and back to the river of Eden.
Moses in the cleft and Elijah in the cave meet the same killing light, and a cavern that fills with the tide explains how stone holds an infinite voice.
Moses stands at Og's border gripped by a fear older than the battle. And God speaks before a single spear is thrown.
A prophet was swept into heaven by a whirlwind, transformed into an angel with giant wings, and has been arriving in disguise at every seder table since.
At Gibeon, God told the young king to ask for anything. Solomon could have named riches or long life. He asked for an understanding heart instead.
A queen who ruled a land Solomon had never seen crossed the known world with riddles, gold, and spices to find out whether the reports were exaggerated.
Elisha refused every farewell Elijah offered. At the Jordan he asked for a double spirit, then watched fire take his master.
A woman who built a room for a prophet so he could rest, who had asked for nothing, now rode hard toward him with her dead son lying upstairs.
The night before the Babylonians breached Jerusalem, four angels descended to the Temple courts and started the burning themselves.
