Famous Old Testament stories
The Old Testament stories most often referred to in books, films, speeches, and conversation, and what actually happens in them.
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Card 1 of 12
What happens in the story of the Tower of Babel?
After the flood, people build a city and a tower reaching to the heavens to make a name for themselves, and God confuses their language and scatters them across the earth.
It explains, in Genesis, why the world has many languages and nations. The point is human pride: building their way up to heaven on their own terms. The very next chapter begins God's different plan, calling one man, Abraham, and promising to make his name great. At Pentecost, the Spirit enables the apostles to speak in many languages, a reversal of Babel.
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Card 2 of 12
What happened to Sodom and Gomorrah, and to Lot's wife?
God destroyed the two cities with fire and sulphur for their wickedness, after rescuing Abraham's nephew Lot and his family. Lot's wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.
Before the destruction, Abraham bargained with God to spare the city if even ten righteous people could be found. The men of Sodom tried to assault Lot's angelic visitors. Ezekiel also names the city's pride, excess of food, and failure to help the poor. Jesus later told his disciples to "remember Lot's wife", a warning against clinging to what one is leaving behind.
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Card 3 of 12
What is Jacob's ladder?
A dream Jacob had while fleeing from Esau, of a stairway reaching from earth to heaven with angels going up and down it and God standing above, renewing the promise to Abraham.
Jacob woke and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it", and named the place Bethel, "house of God". Jesus refers to it when he tells Nathanael he will see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man, presenting himself as the true meeting place of heaven and earth.
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Card 4 of 12
What happened at the burning bush?
God appeared to Moses in a bush that burned without being consumed, called him to go back to Egypt and free Israel, and revealed his name.
Moses was then an eighty-year-old shepherd who had fled Egypt forty years before. He was told to remove his sandals because he was standing on holy ground. He raised one objection after another, and God answered each. When Moses asked God's name, God said "I am who I am", the source of the name Yahweh.
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Card 5 of 12
What were the ten plagues of Egypt?
Ten disasters God sent on Egypt when Pharaoh refused to let Israel go: water turned to blood, frogs, gnats, flies, the death of livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and the death of the firstborn.
Many of them struck at things the Egyptians worshipped, such as the Nile and the sun, and God says he will execute judgment on all the gods of Egypt. Pharaoh repeatedly relents and then hardens his heart. The last plague, when the Israelites' homes marked with a lamb's blood were passed over, is the origin of the Passover.
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Card 6 of 12
What happened at the crossing of the Red Sea?
With Pharaoh's army pursuing them, God parted the sea so Israel could cross on dry ground, and then brought the water back over the Egyptian chariots.
It is the climax of the exodus and the defining moment of rescue in the Old Testament, remembered in the Psalms and the prophets again and again. The Hebrew name is Yam Suph, which may mean "sea of reeds", so its exact location is debated. Paul later compares it to baptism: passing through water from slavery to freedom.
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Card 7 of 12
What was the golden calf?
An idol Aaron made from the people's gold while Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the law, which the people worshipped as the god who brought them out of Egypt.
It happened within weeks of the people promising to obey everything God had said. Moses came down, saw them dancing, and smashed the stone tablets. He then pleaded with God not to destroy the people, and God relented. The phrase "worshipping the golden calf" is now used of devotion to money.
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Card 8 of 12
How did the walls of Jericho fall?
The Israelites marched around the city once a day for six days, carrying the ark, and seven times on the seventh day; the priests blew their trumpets, the people shouted, and the walls collapsed.
It was the first city Israel took in Canaan, and the strange battle plan made clear that the victory was God's, not theirs. Only Rahab and her family were spared. The spiritual "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" retells it.
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Card 9 of 12
What happens in the story of David and Goliath?
A young shepherd, David, faces the Philistine giant Goliath, whom all of Saul's army was afraid of, and kills him with a single stone from his sling.
Goliath was a professional warrior in heavy armour. The standard Hebrew text makes him over nine feet tall; some ancient manuscripts say about six and a half, still a giant beside the average man of the time. David refused Saul's armour and went out with a sling, saying the battle belonged to the LORD. "David and Goliath" now describes any contest between an underdog and a much stronger opponent.
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What was the judgment of Solomon?
Two women each claimed the same baby as her own, and Solomon ordered the child to be cut in half, revealing the real mother as the one who begged him to give the baby to the other woman instead.
It is the Bible's showcase of the wisdom Solomon had asked God for, and all Israel was in awe of him after it. The phrase "splitting the baby" is now used, often mistakenly, to mean a compromise that gives each side half, when in the story the threat was a way of finding the truth.
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Card 11 of 12
What happened between Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel?
Elijah challenged 450 prophets of Baal to see whose god would send fire on a sacrifice. Baal did not answer, but the LORD sent fire that consumed Elijah's water-soaked sacrifice, altar, and all.
The prophets of Baal danced and cut themselves all day while Elijah mocked them, suggesting their god might be asleep or away on a journey. Elijah asked the people how long they would waver between two opinions. The people fell on their faces and cried, "The LORD, he is God."
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Card 12 of 12
What is "the writing on the wall" in the Bible?
During a feast, the Babylonian king Belshazzar saw a hand write on the palace wall a message Daniel interpreted: his kingdom had been weighed, found wanting, and given to the Medes and Persians. He was killed that night.
Belshazzar was drinking from the gold cups looted from the Jerusalem temple. The words were "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin", units of weight used as puns. Today "the writing is on the wall" means that a coming disaster is obvious, and "weighed and found wanting" means judged and found inadequate.