21 myths
Myths, legends, and mystical writings about Sun from across Jewish tradition.
21 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines sun, 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.
The sun refused Joshua's command at Gibeon, insisting it was older than any man. Joshua answered it, and the sun stood still.
David tried to keep death outside through Torah and motion, while the sun itself remained restrained by God for the sake of the world.
When Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, the rabbis said every power he had came from Moses. The moon was still the moon. Its light was borrowed.
She went up to complain about sharing the sky and came back down smaller. Every month since, Israel burns a goat for a sin God says is His.
Two great lights, one crown. When the moon is shrunk to the lesser lamp she storms the court for justice, and heaven ends up owing her a debt.
For a week the world never set. Then the first Sabbath ended, the sun drowned in the sea, and a terrified Adam struck two stones in the dark.
The angels crowded the ladder all night like flies on a sleeping child. Then a light bent over the stone where Jacob lay, and every one of them scattered.
Before Hezekiah, illness meant death. God began recovery with him, stretched the day ten hours, and taught Babylon's prince to rewrite a letter.
Fearing Esau will claim the fathers tomb, Jacob piles gold against the cave and lets his brother choose the shining heap.
Sun and moon climb to Zebul and refuse to shine until God judges Korach, while smoke from the chasm still answers travelers.
On the field of battle Joshua lifts the scroll he never stopped reading and orders the sun to halt, calling in Joseph's old dream as debt.
Each morning the sun immerses in Rigyon, receives new light, and rides a chariot guided by angels, fire and hail balanced so the earth can live.
Before the first wave rose, the sun and moon already stood as witnesses that God had bound Himself to tear the sea for Israel.
The five kings were still running when the light began to go. Joshua raised the scroll of Deuteronomy toward the sun and told it to be quiet.
Joshua ordered sun and moon to stand, and the midrash says the righteous rule the lights, holding day open until Israel's battle was done.
Storm-driven sages poured ocean water that never overflowed, and Rabbi Yehoshua told Hadrian to look at noon light he could not bear.
The moon goes dark after speaking out of turn, bargains hard with God for her stolen brightness, and will not rest until stars walk beside her.
A Roman ruler demanded to see the God of Israel. Rabban Gamliel sent him to stare at the sun, and the challenge broke.
Each dawn the sun and moon enter trembling. God's light blinds them until arrows clear a path, and they rise against their will.
Roman thinkers demand that God erase idols. Jewish elders refuse, because wiping out the sun would prove the fools right.
Before the sun of one tzaddik (a righteous person) goes dark God kindles another, and overhead the daylight charges out like a groom and drags home spent at.
