1,019 myths · Page 17 of 34
Men broke their own earrings. Aaron cast a plate bearing the Name. A living calf stepped from the flames, and Yom Kippur was born in the repair.
On the night death walked Egypt, Pharaoh wandered the streets weeping for Moses, while Hebrew boys misled the king who no longer knew where his slaves slept.
Korah had once held the keys to Pharaoh's treasure houses. He wanted the altar too. Moses gave him one night to take it back.
On the eighth day Aaron saw an ox in the altar horns and could not move, until Moses pushed him forward and fire fell that no human hand had kindled.
Pharaoh made the two old Hebrews wait while lesser kings finished their bows. Seventy secretaries were writing the empire in seventy languages. Pens stopped.
After the tenth plague, Pharaoh forced gold into Hebrew hands and left corpses unburied in his haste. At the sea, fire took the chariot wheels next.
God abandoned the high slopes and settled in a shrub of thorns because Israel was in grief. Moses asked for an oath before he would go down.
Moses climbed Abarim at a hundred and twenty and looked out at the country he would not enter. He was still speaking to Joshua when the cloud came down.
Three months out of Egypt, Israel found water the cattle refused. Doubt opened the door, and Amalek walked through it with swords.
At the sixth hour of the fortieth day, Ha-Satan (the Accuser) painted Moses dead on the mountain. Hur rebuked the mob and fell, and Aaron faced gold with.
On the morning Torah was given, Israel slept late after a short summer night. Moses woke them as a bridegroom wakes a bride, and heaven walked out to meet them.
When women lit lamps for new prophets, Zipporah said woe to their wives. Moses kept silent under accusation, and heaven answered for the meek.
When Hebrew men divorced their wives to spare unborn sons from the Nile, Amram remarried Jochebed in public so despair would not erase Israel.
The crowd made the metal bull move and bellow, then told the judges to call it God. The judges said no, and the crowd killed them for it.
Moses was told to take Aaron, not by the arm, but with speech that turned a heart. Oil, a sin-bullock, and rising smoke finished the hour.
While Moses received Torah above, Hur rebuked the restless camp and was slain. Aaron faced a people who had already killed the man who said no.
Nations offered Israel ranks and power. Israel pointed to tribal banners. Bilam's eye failed when he saw them camped by tribes.
At the bush Moses asked God to send someone else. God sent him anyway, and eighty-year-old Moses walked Egypt into plagues and a split sea.
Balaam told Midian that Israel's God hates lewdness. Market booths pulled young men out, twenty-four thousand fell, then the sword found the counselor.
Israel could have reached the land in eleven days, or three, or one. Moses still waited until Sichon and Og fell before he opened his mouth to rebuke them.
Dying, Jacob ordered Joseph to forgive and shield his brothers. Ages later the tribes buried Joseph in Shechem, the ground that first took him.
At the water's edge the sea scorned Moses as younger than itself. Uzza sued in heaven, Nahshon leaped first, and Pharaoh's six hundred chariots sank.
An Egyptian taskmaster forced Shelomith while Dathan was driven to labor, until Moses struck the abuser dead and fled the men he had saved.
Three days without Torah turned water bitter at Marah, manna fell hot each morning, and quail arrived at night under a darkened face of heaven.
Pharaoh sent men to kill Jochebed and her daughter Miriam. God made the women invisible, and the killers found nobody. Jochebed's newborn walked that day.
Ordinary uncleanness kept you away from the sanctuary. Leprosy kept you out of the camp. The first sent that far had danced around the Golden Calf.
Moses and Aaron each took a handful of ash from the brick furnace. Moses held both heaps in one hand and threw them at the sky. The dust reached the throne.
Before Midian, Moses took a besieged Kushite city after serpents and walls blocked its king. He reigned forty years, then refused the queen and left.
When Israel multiplied like underbrush, Pharaoh asked his counselors for a plan. Job of Uz stepped forward and proposed death for every newborn Hebrew son.
Moses broke under Israel's complaints. God took spirit from him like light from a menorah lamp and set it on seventy elders.
