284 myths · Page 5 of 10
A boy stole God's name and grew wings; Moses saw the future and begged God to stop; and heaven locked every gate so his final prayer could not pass through.
Enemy kings sent their ultimatum on the eve of Shavuot. Joshua read it, folded it, and let the people celebrate before he answered.
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.
After the conquest, a dead king's son united forty-five rulers against Joshua and sent a letter: prepare for war in thirty days. Joshua was acquitted by angels.
Sisera fled the battlefield and entered Jael's tent. Before she picked up the tent peg, she prayed three times and each prayer was answered before she finished.
After Sisera fell, Deborah led Israel for forty years. Her last words at her deathbed were not comfort but a warning she refused to soften.
Deborah's song rose over Sisera's drowned chariots, and a tavern parable explained the music, the glutton's own appetite breaks his teeth.
For forty days the giant counted his taunt aloud, until the ground clamped his feet and heaven chained all 248 of his limbs so David could not miss.
Samuel heard his name in the sanctuary night and ran to Eli three times before the old priest taught him how to answer God.
A king stripped away his royal garments and leaped in the street before the Ark. From her window, his wife watched and felt nothing but contempt.
Goliath had a sword, a spear, and a javelin. David had one sentence. The rabbis said that sentence was heavier than anything Goliath carried.
David counted Israel without the required ransom offering. Seventy thousand died in three days. Where the plague stopped became the Temple Mount.
At Shiloh, Hannah pushed her portion away and wept before the altar. Her tears were her bread, and her grief became the meal that fed her.
A king with armies and a throne knelt alone at night. David told God his soul was leaking, confessed he knew nothing, and begged Him to teach him.
Psalm 145 praises God through the alphabet, but David left out Nun, the letter the sages heard as falling, and answered it anyway.
Hannah stood alone at Shiloh, but Aggadat Bereshit places ancestral merit in the heavenly court where closed wombs can open.
David did not trust his own heart to stay righteous, so he asked God to push him, guard him in Torah, and let repentance rename him.
David's smallest prayer came from illness, pursuit, and a cave where his soul felt imprisoned while Saul waited outside.
The Kabbalists read the Psalms as a two-way circuit. When David sang, the Shekhinah ascended through the realms, and God praised her in return.
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.
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.
A blind exile, a goat given as wages, and a marital argument that cut to the bone. The Book of Tobit holds one of the rawest domestic scenes in ancient texts.
When Tobias left for Media, Hannah wept and could not stop. Tobit said an angel would walk with the boy. She wept more. Both of them were right.
Moses saw the future king standing alone against a giant and prayed for him centuries before David drew his first breath.
At Mizpah, Samuel gave Israel special water to drink. Those who had worshipped idols could not speak afterward. Most confessed before they lifted the cup.
Years after Saul fell at Gilboa, a heavenly voice rang out over Israel and named the dead king God's chosen. Even David was rebuked.
David once asked God what madness was good for. God said the day would come when he would beg for it. He was right.
After writing the last of one hundred fifty psalms, David asked God if any creature praised him more. A frog hopped up and said yes.
The Temple was complete, the Ark was ready, and the gates refused to open. Solomon prayed until he understood whose name had to be spoken.
Hezekiah directed his scribes to copy Isaiah, Proverbs, and the Song of Songs. Then he buried a book of cures, and the rabbis praised both decisions.
