496 myths · Page 6 of 17
His whole tribe worshipped Jeroboam's golden calves and his family mocked him for going to Jerusalem. In Nineveh he buried the bodies left in the streets.
Two judges swore they had caught her with a man under a tree in her own garden. The court believed them. A boy in the crowd asked which tree.
Centuries before Moses received the Torah on Sinai, Shem son of Noah kept a house of study in Canaan. The patriarchs went there to learn.
Shechem seized Dinah while his city watched. Jacob's sons invoked the covenant of Noah, and the tradition holds the whole city answered for it.
Eve named her son Abel because life was vapor. His murder was the first crime on the heavenly tablets. His blessing reached all the way to the patriarchs.
While his brothers sought power, Issachar farmed. He did not marry until he was thirty, too worn out by the fields for desire to find him at night.
At 132, Naphtali told his children he was leaving no silver and no gold. What he left instead was one commandment he called the easiest thing in the world.
Kikanos came home from a war he had won and found his own gates shut. It took nine years, a king's death, and a flock of starving birds to open them.
When God told Moses his sons would not succeed him, the reason was not wickedness. It was that they did not watch the fig tree. Joshua had watched it every day.
Moses named Joshua his successor. Joshua declared he had no questions. Within moments he had forgotten hundreds of laws and nearly been killed for it.
Every other mountain argued for the honor. Sinai was chosen because it was humble, pure, and carried a secret connection the other mountains did not know.
At Sinai the angels sang and Israel received crowns, but God already saw the calf, the broken tablets, and death returning to the camp.
Reuben's prince came forward on the second day expecting his turn. Moses sent him back to wait behind the tribe of scholars and the tribe of traders.
God tests every man before appointing him. The Levites passed two separate trials, decades apart, before they were given the sanctuary to tend.
Kings sought out women of Asher as wives. The sages say those women used their position to plead for people already condemned to die.
Dan was prone to idolatry and placed at the rear of the camp. The tribes beside them were not chosen at random to fill a gap in the formation.
Before attacking Amalek, Saul asked God what wrong the children had done. A voice answered: do not be overjust. He ignored the warning and it destroyed him.
David ordered a count of Israel. Joab begged him to stop. The census went forward, and seventy thousand people died before it ended.
Three brothers worked for Solomon thirteen years. Two took gold when he offered them a choice. The third took advice. Only the third came home.
Elijah had visited the rabbi every day for years. Then a fugitive arrived, and the rabbi made a choice that ended the visits for months.
Someone offered Elijah a thousand million gold coins to leave Yavneh. He said no without hesitating. Then he showed a rabbi something luminous.
From a cave in Roman Judea to a fiery rock in medieval Spain, Elijah carried Jewish mysticism across a thousand years.
Elisha's most gifted disciple inscribed the Divine Name on golden calves and made them utter the words of Sinai. Nothing after that could be undone.
Ahaz had closed every Torah academy in Judah. When Hezekiah became king, he drove a sword into the ground and declared it was time to study or die.
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.
King Amon hunted down every Torah scroll in Judah and burned them. One scroll survived in the Temple wall. His son Josiah wept when he read it.
Josiah's inspectors toured every home in Judah and found no idols. The people had sawed each idol in half and mounted one half on each side of the front door.
Pharaoh warned Josiah to step aside and let the Egyptian army pass. Josiah quoted Moses and refused. He was struck by three hundred arrows before nightfall.
Zedekiah dug a tunnel from Jerusalem to Jericho. God sent a deer, soldiers gave chase, and it led them straight to the exit as the king emerged.
Both men commanded Persian forces on the same campaign. Haman burned through three years of supplies in twelve months and had to beg Mordecai for food.
