104 myths · Page 4 of 4
The Jordan parted cleanly. The harder task came after: dividing conquered land fairly among twelve tribes who each had different needs and memories.
Seven years of war ended with a harder problem than any battle: the lots spoke aloud and each tribe received the land prepared for it.
When Joshua cast lots to divide Canaan, each lot called its tribe's name and territory. The land had known its borders since creation. The lots confirmed it.
The tribes argued at the Red Sea over who would enter first. Benjamin did not wait for the argument to finish. Judah threw stones at them. God rewarded both.
Every tribe put money into the Temple's purchase. Only Benjamin gave the land itself, at the seam where Israel would later break apart.
The tribe of Dan appears twice in the tabernacle: engraved on the high priest's breastplate and embodied in Oholiab, the master artisan who built it.
Two verses disagree on the price David paid for the Temple site. Sifrei Devarim says both are right, and the math shows why the purchase was holy.
Tobit came from Naphtali, first tribe dragged into exile by Assyria. His faithfulness in Nineveh was a one-man correction of his people.
Isaac asks Esau to take his bow and go hunt. The rabbis hear four empire names hiding in the gear, from Babylon to the gallows that held Haman.
The tribe of Dan abandons its contested land, talks itself out of invading Egypt, and marches south into Ethiopia to build a kingdom at the edge of the world.
The Sambatyon hurls stones and sand all week and rests on Shabbat, trapping the lost tribes behind a river that keeps the one day they cannot cross.
In the Ramchal's Kabbalah, Benjamin is not only a patriarch's youngest son. He is the cosmic spirit that makes creation fertile and capable of giving life.
God created a male and female Leviathan, killed the female before she could destroy the world, and salted her flesh for a feast no living person has tasted yet.
Demetrius of Phalerum counts half a million scrolls and finds one gap that no wealth can fill, until seventy-two elders arrive with Torah from Jerusalem.
