310 myths · Page 3 of 11
Joseph prayed for the Ishmaelites hauling him into slavery. Then he trusted a butler over God and paid with two extra years in prison.
Trapped between Pharaoh and the sea, Moses confessed he had no plan. The same man had already written eleven psalms for Israel to pray.
When God offered to destroy Israel and start fresh with Moses alone, Moses turned the offer into the most dangerous argument in scripture.
Five times God announced the destruction of Israel in the wilderness. Five times Moses found the one argument God could not easily refuse.
God told Solomon to ask for anything. Solomon asked only to judge his people. What God gave him in return was everything he had not asked for.
David climbed the Mount of Olives barefoot, weeping, while his son held the throne. He had already learned that walls fall by God's strength alone.
Pregnant in the desert, Hagar called the voice she heard El Ro'i, God Who Sees Me. Bereshit Rabbah and Philo's Midrash disagree about who she spoke to.
Jonathan the Maccabee tears his clothes in the dirt while his army flees. David walks onto a field no one sent him to. Both win the same way.
After the knife stopped on Moriah, Abraham made God hear the promises again and turned Isaac's binding into mercy for Israel.
Abraham stood before Sodom and argued that justice had rules. Job sat in ashes and said the righteous and wicked were all swept away.
Isaiah's death sentence pushed Hezekiah to the wall, while Shevna carved himself a royal grave and aimed an arrow at the king.
Jeremiah asked God four charges after Jerusalem fell. Two were answered at once, and Zion carried the other two into her own argument.
Mordecai hid Esther's people from the palace because rank, danger, and exile all had teeth. Heaven answered by placing Israel in his care.
Mordecai's refusal to bow widened into a vision of God binding sea, sky, and stars, until Haman had to honor him in public.
Mordecai dreams of a snake rising against Israel, then sends Esther toward the king as she prays through terror and fading holy strength.
Fifty thousand men crossed the Jordan to fight for land they would never live on. When they went home and built an altar, Israel armed against them.
Old enemies joined forces when they learned Israel's strength lived in prayer, so Balak searched for a mouth that could curse.
Three days after the sea split, Israel met water it could not drink and learned that confession can sweeten a bitter world.
Moses trembled before the decree after the Golden Calf, then held God to the mercy and humility already written into Torah.
Elijah held back rain until Ahab repented, but God answered with a dry patch of creation that had waited since the first mist.
Peletith hid bread in her water bucket and carried it to the starving man in her street. Sodom burned her for feeding him.
Every night has three watches in the Talmud, and at each one God roars like a lion over the Temple, the exile, and Israel's scattered children.
Cain answered the verdict with a verse. You carry the whole world, he said, and you cannot carry me? God took half the sentence off.
Something is broken, something is eaten, and every face in the house turns toward the wife who has no children. Rachel lived in that house for years.
The grain ran out. Judah pledged himself as surety, and Jacob let Benjamin go to Egypt. Waiting there was a silver goblet planted in the boy's bag.
A carved god stands in the room, close enough to touch and dust. Heaven is five hundred years away on foot. Only one of the two answers when a man calls.
Before Abraham, no one looked old. He asked God to make age visible so the young would know whom to honor. By morning his beard had gone white overnight.
Abraham was a trained Chaldean astrologer. One night he sat watching the sky to predict the rain and talked himself out of the entire profession.
After the tower fell, Hebrew went silent in every human mouth. When God finally called Abraham, He opened his lips and restored the first language of creation.
Elijah came daily to Rabbi Judah's school. One morning he was late. His explanation for why the Patriarchs could not pray together still echoes.
