14 myths
Myths, legends, and mystical writings about Pride from across Jewish tradition.
14 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines pride, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
Hagar had watched Pharaoh's plague and the furnace miracle before she ever conceived. Her contempt came from drawing the wrong lesson from what she knew.
Pharaoh asked Moses for God's credentials as he would ask any rival king. The plagues dismantled his theology from the Nile to the firstborn.
God asked Bilam a question He already knew. Bamidbar Rabbah hears Cain and Hezekiah standing behind that dangerous answer.
God asked Balaam a simple question. Balaam used it to boast. The reply cost him an eye and stripped his curse of force before it began.
God told Balaam not to go. Balaam could not say that to the men in his house, so he told them it would be beneath his dignity to travel with men of their rank.
One had a vow he could not undo. The other had the authority to undo it. Neither would take the first step toward the other, and a girl died for their dignity.
Driven out as a bastard, Jephthah won Israel and lost his daughter to a vow, and his scattered body climbed toward the company of heaven.
Solomon commanded demons, spoke to eagles, and ruled the world. Then one ant told him he was wrong about something, and she was right.
Solomon flew on a carpet 60 miles wide and praised his own power. The wind dropped 40,000 men until the king learned one word again.
Hiram of Tyre supplied the cedar for Solomon's Temple, then spent centuries building seven false heavens to claim the throne that was not his.
A proud king tears the verse that names his fall from the holy book, and a demon in deerskin rides home to sit on his abandoned throne.
Haman had the king's ring, a signed decree, and ten sons. Every person in the empire bowed when he passed. Except the man at the gate.
The king asked what a deserving man should receive. Haman assumed the question was about him and answered in detail. He was wrong.
A heavenly voice hounds the king who drinks from a dead Jew's bones, and his own heir drags his corpse from the grave so it can never rise.
