105 myths · Page 3 of 4
Leah held a firstborn who looked like any other child. She named him so heaven would see the affliction her husband would not.
Asher was a hundred and twenty-five and still strong when he called his sons in. He told them a man can hurt someone in order to heal him.
Reuben held the birthright, kingship, and priesthood for one year before a single night took all three. On his deathbed he named exactly what had done it.
Moses walked the firmament to seize the Torah. When the angels demanded to know why a mortal deserved it, the answer went back to Judah at the fire.
He fed his sons, then told them he was dying. They did not believe him because he still looked strong. Then he told them about the sun and the broken ship.
In a dream, Naphtali's brothers grabbed the sun and the moon, and he seized a star. On earth he carried Jacob's messages between Egypt and Canaan.
Most people with seven names are hiding something. Each of Jethro's seven names recorded a different act of choosing the harder right thing.
Babylon told the Levites to play the Temple songs for its idols. They cut off their own fingers instead, and that night a cloud came for them.
The shelves held more than two hundred thousand scrolls. The Jewish law was not among them. It still lived in Hebrew, in Jerusalem.
The nations watching in the wilderness said these children had Egyptian fathers. God told Moses to count them house by house and settle the question.
Twelve princes each believed the priesthood should have been his. Moses cut all twelve staffs out of one beam so nobody could argue afterward.
A woman drank dust and ink at the tent door to prove she was faithful. The same bitter water had already gone down the throat of a whole nation.
Esau had married Hittite women and their customs filled the house. Rebecca told Isaac that if Jacob married the same way she would rather die.
The butler dreamed of a vine in Joseph's cell. Years later the brothers bowed for grain and named the sale with their own mouths.
Pharaoh would not use the sword. God had already claimed that weapon. He sent the Hebrew boys into the Nile, sure the oath after Noah would keep heaven quiet.
Everyone in the camp would have said they were loyal. Moses asked a narrower question, and only the men who had kept their gold could answer it.
Each tribe flew the color of its stone in Aaron's breastplate. Korach looked at the flags, then at the cousin who had been named prince.
He was naming his sons one at a time from the bed. At Dan he described a man who fights alone and wins, and then he broke off to pray.
Esau came over the ridge with four hundred men and Jacob put his family in order. The smallest boy walked out and stood in front of his mother.
The Philistines filled Abraham's wells with dirt after he died. Isaac dug them open and spoke his father's names over the water again.
Jacob's caravan halted between two walls at the Egyptian border, and a woman went into labor. The list needed seventy names and had sixty-nine.
God told Moses not to whisper the appointment. Bring Aaron's sons. Bring the elders. Let the camp hear it together.
Araunah offered the threshing floor for nothing. David would not put a free gift on the altar. He went to the tribes with an empty bag.
Levi's oldest son was Gershon. Moses counted Kehat first. Bamidbar Rabbah built a ladder of rank to explain why Torah knowledge beats birth order every time.
Adam hid in the garden and the trees shouted that he was a thief. Long after, Jacob faced Laban before witnesses over twenty years of stolen wages.
Zavdi's mouth was already dry. He still found a psalm about a table prepared. In Egypt Judah had to find words with no book in his hand.
While shepherding at Abel-Meholah, Levi saw injustice enthroned and heaven open. Tanchuma places his tribe among God's chosen like Sabbath and the land.
Jacob called his sons, gave Judah a lion and Joseph an ox, then blessed them together so no tribe owned the ending. Moses later took up the same word.
Rachel saw her bridal gifts on Leah's hands and did not speak. Tanchuma says that silence bought her Benjamin's line and the tribes of Joseph's sons.
Jacob had not lain down to sleep in fourteen years. On the road out of Beersheba he stacked twelve stones under his head and put a condition on them.
