1,018 myths · Page 15 of 34
Moses set the Tent of Meeting outside the camp, and the seraphim, sun, and stars lined up to visit. God told him to come back to his people.
At the bush Moses hid his face. Years later he asked to see. God covered the cave with His hand and let him watch glory leave.
Korah's sons could not open their mouths. Fire stood around them and the pit opened under their father. A pillar rose anyway, and they sat down to sing.
Inside the house they sang the first Hallel with sandals on. Outside, Pharaoh named himself humiliated and begged Moses to come to the window.
God offered Moses a nation of his own if Israel died. Moses argued the people free. At the Jordan he asked for himself and the door stayed shut.
Seraphim cover their faces before the throne. Moses asked to see the glory itself. The court of angels stood ready to kill him.
A mother chooses wicker over wood for her son's basket. A staff cut from sapphire waits in a garden. A calf law turns out to be about a people.
Moses refused to weigh the Tabernacle silver unless another man stood in the room and wrote the numbers down beside him.
A betrothed girl was owed a year to gather her oils. Israel's forearms were still white with clay when the word came that they were leaving that night.
A judge whispers his fears to himself on the bench. A tyrant discovers that even his crown was not his own. Only one dying man keeps his eyes on what matters.
Cedars cracked and the hills ran. Houses filled with light that had no lamp behind it. The nations went looking for Balaam to ask what was coming.
Moses built the Tent of Meeting. He knew its every measurement. Then he stopped at the threshold and waited to be called.
The priests came back with sacred portions and clean hands. The spies came back with fear and a report that cost Israel forty years in the desert.
After the Golden Calf, Moses holds stone carved by human hands. Devarim Rabbah says God signed it with the word that begins and ends all creation.
Miriam led the women with timbrels after the sea closed. Then she spoke against Moses and spent seven days shut outside the camp with a skin disease.
Aaron had been prophesying in Egypt for eighty years when his younger brother was chosen. He felt no envy, and so he wore the breastplate over his heart.
Moses stretched out the ancient sapphire staff over the water and the sea refused him, standing firm until the King Himself appeared at the shore.
Moses drove Jethro's sheep forty days to reach Horeb. The empty desert already held the manna, the well, and the clouds of glory.
God gave the shepherd a fire that ate nothing, so the mountain would not frighten him. At the last threshold two angels had to carry him in.
The camp was ready to stone Moses. God told him to pick up the staff they feared and walk ahead of them until the rock opened.
The desert was white before anyone had a name for the stuff on it. A man turned to his neighbor. Man hu, he said. The question became breakfast.
The people said the desert was empty and God had brought them there to die. So the sea split twelve ways, a cloud flattened the road, a rock followed them.
A priest presses olive oil into the cups and trims the wicks. God needs none of it. The flame burns for the hands that light it, not for heaven.
Amos said God never moves without warning his prophets first. The sages took that one line and built a roll call of everyone who heard the secret early.
Most picture Jacob wrestling a man by a river. One early medieval tradition lifts the fight out of the mud entirely and moves it into the palaces of heaven.
Amram sent Jochebed away so no more sons would drown. His daughter stood up and prosecuted him in front of the house.
She set the last jar down and checked herself again. This time the blood was there. Rabban Gamliel went white in the doorway.
Miriam stood watch over her floating brother for an hour. Heaven paid it back at seven days interest, with the entire nation frozen in the desert for her.
All Israel lined the path when Moses walked to the Tent. Then God told him to go back to the camp, and he said no.
Egypt's sorcerers could copy blood and frogs but failed at lice. From that single admitted finger the rabbis traced the whole open hand of Israel's rescue.
