105 myths · Page 4 of 4
Judah got the lion's strength, Dan the serpent's bite. Judah's soil grows barley and Benjamin's grows wheat, and each tribe eats from the other's field.
Twelve grown men leaned over a dying father waiting for their blessing. The first thing he gave them was an order to make themselves clean.
On Carmel Elijah rebuilds a broken altar with twelve stones, one for each tribe. Fire falls, idolatry burns, and a prophet matches Moses step for step.
After the calf thins the camp, God tells Moses to number the tribes by their initials, a shepherd counting sheep after wolves, not a king counting for pride.
The sanctuary nested in Benjamin's land like a head between shoulders, while Judah's portion pressed the courts like an ox's horn.
Jacob had left Reuven a hard word and no blessing. Years later the tribes were offered anything they wanted, and they asked for their brother instead.
Nebuchadnezzar looked down from his boat, saw the kings of Judah walking the riverbank with nothing on their backs, and ordered loads put on them.
Jacob called for his sons and the corridors stayed empty. Twelve grown men, and not one of them in the room where he was dying.
Dying in Egypt, Jacob places twelve sons around his coffin like a map. Later the same order rings the Tabernacle, and Moses camps at the door to make peace.
Reuben had his father's bed in the record. Simeon had Shechem. The files came back one at a time, until only the tribe with no land was left.
Aaron held still while twelve princes took colors from the stones on his chest. Judah's lion went up in the first wind.
Deborah sent Naphtali's fighters like a doe let loose. Swift feet took the Kishon road, and later song repaid the charge.
After civil war, Israel cursed any father who gave a daughter to Benjamin. On the fifteenth of Av the vow loosened and a tribe lived.
The wagons stopped. Moses kept his hands at his sides. The chiefs who had taken Egypt's rods waited for a word he would not invent.
His brothers got vineyards and grain while he got mountains and a raw shore. So Zebulun went up and told God he had been shortchanged.
