393 myths · Page 6 of 14
Daniel had grown too old to hold a court together. He walked out to the camp of the exiles, took a man by the hand, and brought him back as his replacement.
While the Temple stood, the King came down every midnight to the inner room. After it burned, His Bride went out into the road with nothing left to wear.
Above the city that can burn stands a Jerusalem that cannot, waiting in light above the ruins, aligned with what was lost below.
Two Hasmonean brothers each asked Rome to settle which of them should rule. The Romans built their siege ramp on Sabbaths, when nobody threw.
Two lecturers heard the king was dying and sent their students up the Temple gate with axes. Forty of them stayed when the soldiers came.
Babylon told them to play. The Levites put their fingers between their teeth, bit them off, and threw them down in front of the men who burned the Temple.
No iron could touch the Temple stones, so Solomon needed the Shamir worm. Benaiah drained the well where Ashmedai the demon drank and poured in wine.
A sage escapes in a coffin, the dew stops blessing the earth, a pig appears on the siege wall, and the Levites hang their harps on Babylonian willows.
Forty years of omens precede the Temple's fall, a prophet's blood boils for centuries naming its killers, and Nero reads his own verdict and runs.
Sifrei Bamidbar refused the idea that the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, withdrew when the Temple fell. She goes with Israel even into foreign lands.
Moses prayed for forgiveness after the Golden Calf but asked too narrowly. The Tabernacle smoke was how the nations knew the husband had returned.
Solomon binds Ashmedai with the Ineffable Name to get the shamir. After the Temple is built, Ashmedai borrows the royal ring and throws Solomon into exile.
Jerusalem falls in 70 CE. The high priest's daughter is put up for sale. A rich man starves in the siege with gold still in his hands.
The Temple burned and one wall stayed up. Rabbi Yosei said God swore never to let that wall fall, and that God still stands behind the stones.
David wanted his own name in the blessing beside Abraham's. God told him what Abraham had gone through to get it there. David said, test me too.
Moses promises locusts, then walks out before Pharaoh can answer. With him gone, the advisers finally tell the king that Egypt is ruined.
Adam settles on Mount Moriah after Eden because the gate he can no longer enter is close, and the place of return becomes the place of the Temple.
The Levites stand on their platform as the Temple burns, their verse breaks off in their mouths, and praise survives the fire by surviving inside it.
Nobody has ever woken in the morning and found his soul missing, or found his neighbor's soul in his hands. That deposit has never once been mixed up.
David cannot build the Temple but cannot stop wanting it, and God credits the longing as if stone had already been laid on stone.
The floor moved under the study house. Rabbi Nehorai blamed unseparated tithes. Elijah told him the real reason, and the real reason was worse.
The Greek fort inside Jerusalem had watched the Temple for years. Simon starved the soldiers out, paid for the war himself, and let them live.
When Moses's final day arrived, Devarim Rabbah says the sun refused to set and the day itself filed a complaint before God about being forced to end.
Jerusalem's castles could hold fifty days. Eikhah Rabbah says God reassigned the angels at each gate, and the city learned too late.
Cedar trees hauled to Babylon wept for their homeland, and Jerusalem's tarnished gold still hid a fire that exile could not extinguish.
Three rabbis wept when a fox walked out of the Holy of Holies. Akiva laughed, reading the ruin as proof the prophecy of rebuilding was now guaranteed.
The servant would not touch the meal until he had said his errand. He talked half the night. By morning Rebekah's father was dead in the house.
The last men inside the sanctuary did not leave because courage failed. They left because famine won. Then Simon stepped forward and carved his name in brass.
The king's officers praised Mattathias and offered his family safety. He refused, struck down the man who stepped forward to comply, and fled into the hills.
Pharaoh had said he did not know the Lord. At the sea his own men were shouting that the Lord was fighting for Israel, and fleeing as the water came back.
