6,276 texts · Page 109 of 131
The Hebrew Bible in (Genesis 13:7) says only that there was strife between the shepherds. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells you what the strife was about, and the answer is an ethics le...
The verse in (Genesis 13:10) says Lot lifted up his eyes and saw the plain of the Jordan, well-watered, lush, an earthly paradise. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan pierces that pastoral scen...
The Hebrew Bible in (Genesis 13:13) says simply that the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners against the Lord, exceedingly. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan refuses that generality. The Ara...
The Hebrew Bible in (Genesis 13:14) times the divine address with surgical precision: after that Lot had separated from him. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the clause verbatim be...
The promise in (Genesis 13:16) has a strange choice of image. God does not tell Abram his children will be like stars or like sand. Those images come later. Here the promise is as ...
The verse in (Genesis 13:18) is the closing note of a long chapter. Abram pulls up his tent, moves south, and pitches it in the vale of Mamre at Hebron. He builds an altar. Targum ...
A roster of kings is usually a place where readers skim. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:2) will not let you skim. It reads the names. The Aramaic treats each royal name as a...
A geographical footnote in (Genesis 14:3) becomes, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, a small elegy. The Aramaic renders the location as the vale of the gardens (paredesaia), the place tha...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:5) turns a military roll call into a tour of the archaic world's titans. Kedarlaomer's coalition sweeps through the land and smites three peop...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:6) adds a single parenthetical that rewrites a whole people's identity: the Choraee (dwellers in caverns) who were in the high mountains of Ge...
A military march in (Genesis 14:7) becomes, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, a moment of temporal vertigo. The verse says the kings returned to En-Mishpat, meaning the spring of judgment...
The verse in (Genesis 14:8) simply lists who showed up for the battle. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot let a list stay a list. It glosses Bela once more as the city which consumed it...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:9) makes a small geographical translation that reframes the entire conflict. The Hebrew Bible names four kings: Kedarlaomer of Elam, Tidal, Am...
The plain verse in (Genesis 14:10) is a grim military note: the vale of Siddim was full of tar pits, and the fleeing kings of Sodom and Amorah fell into them. Targum Pseudo-Jonatha...
This is one of the most extraordinary passages in the entire Targum. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:13) takes a single Hebrew word — ha-palit, the fugitive who brought news ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:14) delivers one of the boldest numeric readings in the Aramaic tradition. The Hebrew Bible says Abram armed three hundred and eighteen traine...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:15) turns Abram's night raid into a double operation with a prophetic shadow. The Aramaic says Abram divided his forces in the night: a part w...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:17) translates a forgotten geographical name into a vivid picture. The Hebrew Bible calls the location the Valley of Shaveh, which is the King...
This is perhaps the single most important identification Targum Pseudo-Jonathan makes in the Abram cycle. On (Genesis 14:18) the Aramaic declares: Malka Zadika, who was Shem bar No...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:20) preserves Shem-Malkizedek's blessing and the patriarch's response. Blessed be Eloha Ilaha, who hath made thine enemies as a shield which r...
After tithing to Shem-Malkizedek, Abram turns to the other king on the race-course — the king of Sodom — and refuses him. (Genesis 14:22) records the oath, and Targum Pseudo-Jonath...
After Abraham routed the four kings and rescued his nephew Lot, the king of Sedom came out to meet him with an offer that looked generous and was actually a trap. Take the spoil, t...
Having refused the king of Sedom's gift, Abraham was not done speaking. One refusal can become self-righteousness if you are not careful. So in the very next breath, according to T...
When God promised Abraham a great reward, Abraham's answer was not gratitude. It was an honest complaint. Gifts without children are not quite gifts. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Gen...
It is a small verb and it does a great deal of work. He brought him forth without. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:5) keeps the gesture literal: the Lord brings Abraham outsi...
Two Hebrew words make a whole theology: and he believed. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:6) unpacks them with Aramaic precision, and the unpacking is worth the effort. He bel...
When Abraham asked for confirmation of the promise, the Lord did not give him a speech. He gave him a butchery list. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:9) preserves it exactly. ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:10) gives Abraham the work of a careful butcher and a careful theologian at the same time. He brings the five animals. He divides them down th...
Once the pieces were laid out, something ugly came down. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:11) calls it plainly: idolatrous peoples, like unclean birds, descending on the sacri...
As the sun dipped low over the divided animals, a tardemah fell on Abraham — a deep, prophetic sleep. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:12) uses that sleep to show him the whol...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 15:13) is severe enough: know with certainty that your seed will be a stranger in a land not theirs, and they will afflict them four hundred years. Targum Ps...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 15:14) promises judgment on the nation whom they shall serve. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives the judgment a number that has startled readers for centuries. Two...
When the sun went down on the covenant between the pieces, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:17) turns the Hebrew's smoking furnace and flaming torch into something far more vi...
Right after the terrifying vision of Gehinnom and the four kingdoms, the Lord sets a covenant. And Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:18) spells out the promise with an emphasis...
There is a detail in the Hebrew of (Genesis 16:2) that the Targum will not let pass quietly. Sarah sends her husband to her handmaid Hagar. The Hebrew says simply go in unto my mai...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 16:3) marks the moment with a small, precise number: after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan holds onto that ten and ad...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 16:5) lets Sarah speak at length, and the speech is a small masterpiece of grief, accusation, and memory. It begins quietly — my affliction is fr...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 16:6) is terse, almost stenographic. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan keeps the brevity but sharpens one word: authority. Behold, thy handmaid is under thy authority, ...
In the wilderness, Hagar meets an angel. And the angel does what angels rarely do — he names a child. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 16:11) keeps the name-meaning the Hebrew en...
The angel does not just name Ishmael. He predicts him. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 16:12) lets the prophecy roll out in the open: he shall be like the wild ass among men, hi...
At the spring in the wilderness, Hagar does something that no one in Genesis has done before. She gives God a name. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 16:13) renders her declaratio...
Thirteen years pass between chapters. When the Lord returns to Abraham, He speaks a name He has not yet used in Genesis. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 17:1) keeps it in its or...
Old names do not drop off quietly. When the Lord tells Abraham that Abram will no longer be his name, He is rewriting a biography that has already lasted ninety-nine years. Targum ...
When the Lord frames the covenant in (Genesis 17:7), Targum Pseudo-Jonathan slips in one of its most telling technical terms. The covenant is established between My Word and thee. ...
Alongside the everlasting covenant comes an everlasting land. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 17:8) sets the promise out cleanly: the land of Abraham's habitation — all of Canaa...
When the Lord lays down the sign of the covenant, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 17:10) catches a case the Hebrew leaves implicit. Every male among you shall be circumcised — t...
The eighth day is the answer to a careful question: how soon can a newborn be brought under the covenant? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 17:12) settles the timing and then push...
(Genesis 17:13) in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns a one-way sacrament into a chain. He who is circumcised shall circumcise him — the one already inside the covenant brings the next o...
