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The Torah says God will put enmity between the serpent and the woman's seed. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 3:15) turns that enmity into a long, conditional war with an ending....
Eve's sentence in the Torah is brief. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 3:16) weighs it. "Multiplying, I will multiply thy affliction by the blood of thy virginity, and by thy con...
Adam's sentence, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 3:17), includes an unusual charge. "Accursed is the ground, in that it did not show thee thy guilt; in labour shalt thou eat ...
The curse of thorns and thistles arrives, and for the first time in the story, Adam argues back. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 3:18) has Adam pray: "I pray, through mercies fr...
The Torah says simply, "to dust thou shalt return." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 3:19) refuses to let that be the end. After the dust, the Targumist says, there is one more a...
The Torah says God made "garments of skin" for Adam and his wife. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 3:21) tells us whose skin. "The Lord God made to Adam and to his wife vestures ...
Just as God consulted the angels to make humanity, He consults them again to remove humanity from paradise. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 3:22) records the divine deliberation...
Adam's expulsion becomes, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 3:24), a sweeping theological statement about everything God made before He made anything. God drove the man out fro...
The Torah simply says Cain brought an offering "in the course of time." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:3) fixes a date: the fourteenth of Nisan. That is the eve of Passover. ...
In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:4), Abel's offering is described in three careful words: "the firstlings of the flock, and of their fat." The firstlings — the first-born of...
The Torah's warning to Cain — "sin crouches at the door" — becomes, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:7), one of the clearest statements of Jewish free will in the entire Tor...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 4:8) is notoriously fragmentary: "Cain said to Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and ...
God's question to Cain after the murder is a pair of hammer blows. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:10) phrases it as: "What hast thou done? The voice of the bloods of the murd...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:11) continues the image. "Now because thou hast killed him, thou art cursed from the earth, which hath opened the mouth, and received the blood...
Cain's response to the curse, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:14), includes a nuance the Hebrew does not spell out. "Behold, Thou hast cast me forth today from the face of ...
What was the "mark of Cain"? The Torah only says God placed a sign on him so no one would kill him. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:15) tells us what the sign was. "The Lord s...
The Torah says Cain went to dwell in "the land of Nod." Nod in Hebrew means "wandering," and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:16) translates it plainly: "the land of the wander...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:22) gives us the first credits for human culture. Zillah bore Tubal-Cain, "the chief (rab) of all artificers who know the workmanship of brass ...
Lamech's cryptic boast in the Torah — "I have slain a man to my wounding" — becomes, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:23), a defense plea. "Hear my voice, wives of Lemek, he...
Lamech's argument continues in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:24). He does a piece of theological arithmetic in front of his wives. "For Cain who sinned and was converted by ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:25) slows the Torah down. Adam did not immediately father another son after the murder. The Targumist tells us it took a hundred and thirty yea...
The Torah says, about the generation of Enosh, "then men began to call upon the name of the Lord." The Targumist reads this exactly the opposite way. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Gen...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 5:3) reopens old wounds. "Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat Sheth, who had the likeness of his image and of his similitude: for be...
The Torah says cryptically of Enoch: "he walked with God; and he was not, for God took him" (Genesis 5:24). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us where he went. "Hanok served in the trut...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 5:29) preserves the folk etymology of Noah's name. Lamech calls his son "Noach," which the Targum glosses as "Consolation," saying: "This shall c...
One of the Torah's most mysterious verses, (Genesis 6:2), talks about "the sons of God" taking "the daughters of men." The Targumist keeps the image but sharpens it. Targum Pseudo-...
The Torah's "his days shall be 120 years" gets a full theological frame in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:3). God speaks by His Word: "All the generations of the wicked which...
The enigmatic "Nephilim" of (Genesis 6:4) get names in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. "Schamchazai and Uzziel, who fell from heaven, were on the earth in those days." These are the Watche...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:7) uses the Memra formula to absorb the Torah's most troubling phrase. The Hebrew says God "repented" that He made humanity. The Targum frames ...
The Torah calls Noah "a righteous man, perfect in his generations." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:9) tightens the description: "Noah was a just man, complete in good works i...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:11) isolates the cause of the Flood. "The earth was corrupted through the inhabitants thereof, who had declined from the ways of righteousness ...
The verdict lands, and it lands on Noah's ear first. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:13) gives us the direct speech: "The end of all flesh cometh before Me, because the earth ...
The Torah gives Noah minimal construction specs. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:14) hands him a blueprint. "Make thee an ark of the wood of cedars; a hundred and fifty cells ...
The Torah says to set a "tzohar" in the ark — a mysterious word usually translated "window" or "light." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:16) tells us Noah had to fetch it. "Go ...
The Flood is named. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:17) renders it: "I, behold, I bring a flood of waters upon the earth to swallow up all flesh which hath in it the spirit of...
How did every species find the ark? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:20) gives an answer the Torah does not. "Of the fowl after its kind, and of all cattle after its kind, and ...
Even at the last possible moment, the door of repentance stays open. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:4) has God tell Noah: "Behold, I give you space of seven days; if they wil...
Before the first drop of the Flood struck the earth, heaven waited. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:10) teaches that the Holy One delayed the deluge for seven full days after ...
The Flood did not arrive gently. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:11) dates it with astonishing precision: the six-hundredth year of Noah's life, the second month, the seventee...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:13) narrows the entire human story down to a single doorway. On the day the Flood began, eight people walked through it — Noah, his three sons ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:14) does what Torah often does at its most sublime moments — it lists. Every wild animal after its kind. Every domestic beast after its kind. E...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:16) adds a single detail to the biblical verse that changes the entire picture. The creatures entered, male and female, of all flesh, just as t...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:21) is short and unbearable. Every bird. Every domestic animal. Every wild beast. Every crawling creature. And every one of the sons of men. Ex...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:23) ends the Flood with six words the reader will never forget: Noah only was left, and they who were with him in the ark. The Targum has just ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:1) turns the tide of the story with a phrase the Hebrew does not quite say. And the Lord in His Word remembered Noah, and then — listen careful...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:4) plants the ark on a very specific patch of earth. In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day, in the month the Targum calls Nisan, the gre...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:5) tracks the waters like a patient sailor counting days. The Aramaic says that the waters went and diminished until the tenth month, the month...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:9) tells one of the most delicate scenes in all of Torah. Noah sends out a dove, a yonah, to see whether the earth is ready. The Targum says sh...
