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Verse 14 is the hardest word in this chapter, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not round its edges. The uncircumcised male — unless he have someone to circumcise him — shall be cut ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 17:16) takes the blessing the Lord pronounces over Sarah and stretches it forward across centuries. I will bless in her body, and will also give ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 17:17) is the mirror image of Sarah's later laugh at the tent door. Abraham falls on his face. He does not argue out loud. He laughs — wondered, ...
Abraham had asked for Ishmael to be the heir of the promise (Genesis 17:18). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 17:19) preserves the Lord's answer, and it is not what Abraham reque...
(Genesis 17:20) is the Lord's answer to the previous verse's quiet sadness. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it with full warmth. Concerning Ishmael I have heard thy prayer. Behold, ...
(Genesis 17:23) is the verse in which Abraham stops listening and starts doing. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it with the urgency the Hebrew encodes: Abraham took Ishmael his son,...
Chapter 18 of Genesis opens with one of the most intimate moments in the Torah, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives it a medical detail the Hebrew leaves implicit. The glory of the Lo...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 18:2) gives the three visitors at Abraham's tent their heavenly job descriptions. They are angels in the likeness of men, the Targum says, and th...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 18:3) is famously ambiguous. Is Abraham speaking to the angels, or to God? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan answers with a confident rearrangement. Abraham addresses t...
(Genesis 18:5) in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns a simple meal into a moment of blessing. Abraham will bring bread so that the travelers may strengthen their hearts — and, the Targum...
(Genesis 18:8) contains one of the Torah's most curious moments, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it with an almost comic precision. Abraham takes rich cream, milk, and the calf ...
The Hebrew says simply that Sarah was listening at the tent door. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 18:10) puts a second listener behind her. And Sarah was hearkening at the door ...
(Genesis 18:14) is the Torah's answer to every reader who has ever wondered whether God notices the small disbeliefs of the faithful. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan takes the Hebrew's ha-y...
The three travelers had finished their meal under the terebinths. They rose, and the Targum watches them split off into three different errands. The one who had come to announce a ...
There is a quiet line in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 18:17) that changes how you read the whole Sodom episode. God speaks, as the Targum puts it, bememra — with His Word — a...
Why did God decide to let Abraham in on the destruction of Sodom? The Targum answers with one Aramaic word: chasidutha — piety, devotion, loving-kindness. His chasidut, the Targum ...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 18:20) says only that the outcry of Sedom and Amorah is great and their sin very heavy. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan will not leave that vague. It hands us, in Ara...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 18:21) says only, "I will go down now and see." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan opens a window into what God is actually going down to see. And the window is heartbre...
The angels turn. They set their faces toward Sedom. And the Targum on (Genesis 18:22) pauses to tell us what Abraham does in that moment: he "supplicated mercy for Lot, and ministe...
When Abraham begins his famous bargain in (Genesis 18:24), the Hebrew simply says "perhaps there are fifty righteous within the city." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns this into a deta...
The bargain continues. Abraham has offered fifty — ten righteous in each of the five plain-cities. Now, in (Genesis 18:28), he tries a different tactic. "Perhaps of the fifty innoc...
Abraham is not tired yet. In (Genesis 18:29) he descends one rung further in his negotiation, and the Targum spells out the logic most translations hide. "Perhaps there may be fort...
At (Genesis 18:30), Abraham's nerve almost breaks. "Let not the displeasure of the Lord, the Lord of all the world, wax strong against me, and I will speak." The Targum is tracking...
By (Genesis 18:31), Abraham is calling God "the Lord of all the world" — ribbon kol alma in the Targum's Aramaic — and apologizing in advance. "Imploring mercy, I have now begun to...
Here is where the bargain ends, and here is where Targum Pseudo-Jonathan slips in the detail most English readers miss. "I implore mercy before Thee! Let not the anger of the Lord,...
Evening falls over Sedom, and two angels arrive. The Hebrew of (Genesis 19:1) says Lot was sitting "in the gate of Sedom." The Targum catches a detail the plain reading hides. "Two...
"Turn now hither," Lot says to the two angels, "and enter the house of your servant, and lodge, and wash your feet" (Genesis 19:2). The angels refuse. "No; for in the street we wil...
(Genesis 19:3) has one of the most charming details in all of Torah, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan doubles down on it. "And he persuaded them earnestly, and they turned aside to be wi...
The mob scene in (Genesis 19:4) is one of the most chilling lines in Torah. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it with unflinching clarity. "They had not yet lain down, when the wicked...
Some verses in Torah are hard to carry, and (Genesis 19:8) is one of them. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan translates it without softening. "Behold, now, I have two daughters who have had n...
The crowd at Lot's door is done bargaining. (Genesis 19:9), in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan's Aramaic, records the exact accusation they throw at him. "Did not this come alone to sojourn...
The door is about to break. The mob is surging forward. And then (Genesis 19:11), in the Targum's rendering, becomes the moment the heavens intervene directly. "But the men who wer...
The night is almost over. The angels have told Lot that the city is finished. (Genesis 19:14) describes his frantic effort to save the only other relatives he has in town. "And Lot...
The sky is beginning to lighten. The judgment is scheduled for sunrise. (Genesis 19:15) finds the angels pleading with a man who cannot quite make himself move. "And at the time th...
Sometimes the purest image of divine mercy in Torah is also the most embarrassing. (Genesis 19:16) in the Targum reads this way. "But he delayed: and the men laid hold on his hand,...
The moment they clear the gates of Sedom, the angelic pair splits. (Genesis 19:17), in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, makes the division of labor unmistakable. "And it was that as they le...
The angel has commanded Lot to flee to the mountain. Lot looks at the rising sun and the distant ridges and says, in (Genesis 19:19), a deeply human thing. "Behold, now, thy servan...
Lot continues his nervous negotiation in (Genesis 19:20). "Behold, now, I pray, this city, it is a near habitation, and convenient to escape thither; and it is small, and the guilt...
In (Genesis 19:21), the Targum renders the angelic answer with a startling economy. "And He said, Behold, I have accepted thee in this matter also, that I will not overthrow the ci...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 19:24) preserves one of the most heartbreaking traditions in all of rabbinic literature about the destruction of Sedom and Amorah. "And the Word ...
(Genesis 19:26) is famously brief. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is not. "And his wife looked after the angel, to know what would be in the end of her father's house, for she was of the d...
(Genesis 19:29) gives the whole Sodom episode its underlying machinery in a single sentence. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan translates it plainly. "And it was when the Lord destroyed the c...
Lot's arc is almost done. (Genesis 19:30) places him, finally, where the angel originally told him to go in (Genesis 19:17) — the mountain. "And Lot went up from Zoar, and dwelt in...
(Genesis 19:33) is one of the most uncomfortable scenes in Torah, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not look away. "And they made their father drink wine that night, and he was drunk...
(Genesis 19:34) is a verse most readers speed past. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan slows down and lets us hear the elder daughter plan. "And it was the day following, and the elder said to...
(Genesis 19:35) completes the pattern begun two nights earlier. "And they made their father drink wine that night also, and he was drunk, and the younger arose, and lay with him; a...
(Genesis 19:37), in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: "And the elder brought forth a son, and she called his name Moab, because from her father she had conceived. He is the father of the Moa...
(Genesis 19:38), in the Targum's rendering: "And the younger also brought forth a son, and she called his name Bar-Ammi, because he was the son of her father. He is the father of t...
