195 myths · Page 5 of 7
One faction meant to live up there. Another carried axes to hack at the firmament and make war. Heaven turned that second group into apes and sheydim.
The neighbors asked what the cedar saplings were for. Noah told them the truth. They laughed, and he went on watering the trees.
One language, one rebellion, one tower. Heaven refused another flood of corpses and chose dispersion so the world would never forget the generation of water.
After the flood Noah warned his sons they already walked toward ruin. Ham left cursed and built a city; Japheth saw it and built in envy.
Bilam swore no house of silver and gold could move him. Then he stayed another night anyway, hoping God would change the answer.
A prophet stood in the Temple court wearing a wooden yoke on his neck. Another prophet walked up, tore it off him, and smashed it in front of the crowd.
A mist came up and watered the whole earth by itself, so they asked heaven for one drop of rain and nothing else. Noah later said he was no better.
Before the rain, the earth filled with hamas. Rabbi Levi heard idolatry, bloodshed, and sexual ruin in one word, and only Noah found favor.
The flood generation pressed their own children into the rising springs as stoppers. The water came around the children and kept coming.
One cup uncovered Noah. Ham looked and told. The curse skipped a blessed son and lodged in Canaan, while wine kept toppling generations after the flood.
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah refused Nebuchadnezzar's image, entered fire, and would not leave until the king who bound them spoke them free.
Noah's raven refused the mission and argued for its species. God ordered it kept for Elijah. Wonders followed, and exile still came for unrepentant kings.
The flood began and ended on the same calendar day. Noah counted the mirrored year from inside the hull, and the bow held judgment on a leash.
The raven went out over the drowned world and never came back. The dove could not find one dry stone to stand on, so she came home.
Their bulls bred and never failed, and their children ran loose through the fields with drums and harps. Then they told God to leave them alone.
Two of Esau's tears ran down his face. The third stayed lodged in his eye and never fell, and Heaven measured out a payment to match it.
Judgment ran as deep as the abyss. Mercy rose as high as Ararat. When God remembered Noah, every beast in the dark was remembered too.
Inside the ark a jewel marked day from night while all flesh that moved died outside, and God vowed not to strike the earth that way again.
Noah waited in a sealed ark while the world drowned. Then a breath moved, wind or spirit, and the waters began to walk backward.
For twelve months Noah prays in a sealed wooden world. God forbids love on board while He tears the old earth down outside.
Noah walked with God like a child holding a father's hand. Abraham was told to walk before God, a lamp bearer sent ahead into darkness.
On his last day Moses did the arithmetic and it frightened him. Bilam was called a prophet too. Both of them were going to die.
Adam named the new baby another seed instead of Abel. Eve's arms closed around a living weight while the missing son still shaped every meal.
Water rose fifteen cubits over every peak while Noah fed lions and worms, until the first of a new year cracked the silence.
Once a lion did not see a man as prey. Then Noah stood on drying mud and heard that even the creeping things were food for him now.
Before the rain, Noah hears the world call itself flesh, self-love thick as mud, until even the breath under heaven reeks of desire.
After the flood God sets a war-bow in the cloud, point turned from earth, so Noah's shaking household can trust the world will not drown twice.
Shem, Ham, and Japheth stood in a half-circle while their father laid down a rule: whoever sheds blood or eats it leaves no seed under heaven.
Neighbors watched a box rise where a house should be. The Book of Jubilees dates the work to an exact year and week, down to the new moon.
The neighbors laughed while he measured beams, and their children threw stones at the hull. The sky stayed blue long enough to make him look foolish.
