42 myths · Page 2 of 2
Abraham refused Sodoms spoils, and Jacob learned that covenant could outweigh the long procession of Esaus kings and thrones.
The nations gave their gods armies, taxes, and the fat of sacrifices. Rabbi Yehudah said a reckoning was coming and the gods would have nothing to show for it.
When all the kings of Canaan allied to destroy Israel crossing the Jordan, Joshua prayed. The Mekhilta says the result was identical to the Red Sea.
Esau lost the blessing and cried three measured tears. Heaven remembered them, and Israel would weep for ages of its own.
Balaam prophesied the Messianic age and named Jethro heirs as its first heralds. Then the spirit left him. The last prophet the nations would ever have.
Nimrod lit a furnace in Casdim and nine hundred thousand came to watch Abram burn. The grasshopper climbed the trellis. Then it fell.
Esau waits for his father to die. Pharaoh counts a swarming people. Haman seals a letter to kill every Jew in one day. Each plot is smarter. Each fails.
Solomon counted 153,600 foreigners to build the Temple. Midrash Tehillim heard Psalm 87 in those numbers: a deed done for Israel earns a birth record in Zion.
Sennacherib surrounds Jerusalem and the Midrash asks whether God's perfect way holds when nations close in like bees around the city walls.
Esther Rabbah imagines God reviewing the accounts of every empire. The wool in Daniel's vision is the record of debts God owes no one.
Amos imagined a man who ran from a lion and met a bear next. Esther Rabbah saw Israel escaping empire after empire and still living.
The flood taught even the gentile nations to fence themselves from depravity. Shechem broke the rule the whole world had accepted.
