6,276 texts · Page 115 of 131
For twenty years Jakob had held his tongue. Every shift of wages, every cold look, every whisper from the sons — he had swallowed them all. Now, after the fruitless search, somethi...
After the failed search, Jakob did what a righteous man does when falsely accused. He opened his tents. Having, therefore, searched all my vessels, what hast thou found of all the ...
Jakob reviewed the twenty years before the tribunal. That torn by wild beasts I have not brought to thee; for had I sinned, from my hand thou wouldst have required it (Genesis 31:3...
Jakob drew up the final accounting for the court of kinsmen. These twenty years have I been in thy house, serving thee; fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy ...
Jakob named two patriarchal witnesses in one breath. Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and He whom Izhak feareth had been in my help, even now hadst thou sent me awa...
Cornered, Laban made the last argument of a man who cannot let go. The children whom thou hast received of thy wives are my children, and the children whom they may bear will be re...
The treaty had one more clause. Laban said to Jakob, If thou shalt afflict my daughters, doing them injury, and if thou take upon my daughters, there is no man to judge us, the Wor...
They built a boundary out of stone. This mound is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I may not pass beyond this mound to thee, and that thou mayest not pass beyond this ...
After the stones were stacked, Jakob did something remarkable. Jakob slew sacrifices in the mount, and invited his kinsmen who came with Laban to help themselves to bread, and they...
Jakob saw the encampment approaching and his first instinct was dread. These are not the host of Esau who are coming to meet me, nor the host of Laban, who have returned from pursu...
As Jakob prepared his message to Esau, he did something strange. He instructed his servants to announce that the great blessing stolen years before had, in effect, come to nothing....
The messengers returned with the news every fleeing brother dreads. We came to thy brother, to Esau, and he also cometh to meet thee, and four hundred chief-warriors with him (Gene...
Here is why Jakob's fear was so great. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives the reason the plain Hebrew only hints at: he was greatly afraid, because for twenty years he had not been mindf...
The moment Jacob heard that Esau was coming with four hundred armed men, he did what his grandfather and father had done before him: he prayed. But notice the opening he chose. He ...
"Save me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him." Jacob's plea in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 32:12) names two things most ancient prayers leave imp...
"But You promised." This is the hinge of Jacob's prayer in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 32:13). After naming his fears, after invoking his fathers, after shrinking himself into ...
Jacob was a strategist, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the tactical cleverness of his gift to Esau (Genesis 32:17). He did not send one large herd. He sent flock after flock,...
Jacob knew Esau would ask three questions, so he wrote the answers in advance. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the briefing given to the first servant in the caravan (Genesis 32:1...
"According to these words you must speak with Esau when you find him." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan repeats the instruction three times (Genesis 32:20) — first servant, second servant, t...
"I will make his countenance friendly by the gift which goes before me, and afterward I will see his face: perhaps he will accept me." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves Jacob's priv...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves one of the strangest accounts in all of Jewish tradition (Genesis 32:25). Jacob was left alone across the Jabbok, and an angel wrestled him in the ...
"And he saw that he had not power to hurt him." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 32:26) pauses to notice something the plain verse whispers but does not say outright: the angel lost...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives the wrestling angel a confession that the plain text never imagined (Genesis 32:27). When dawn came, the angel pleaded: "Let me go, for the column of t...
"Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a line the plain text only implies (Genesis 32:29): the new name was given "because you are magni...
"And the sun rose upon him before his time." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 32:32) preserves one of the tenderest details in the whole Jacob cycle: the sun itself rearranged its s...
"Therefore the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew which shrank." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 32:33) preserves the origin of one of the oldest kosher laws — the prohibition aga...
Jacob lifted his eyes and saw what he had feared for twenty years: Esau, and with him four hundred men of war (Genesis 33:1). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not soften the number. Fou...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan speaks plainly about what many readers would rather leave implicit (Genesis 33:2). Jacob "placed the concubines and their sons foremost." And the Targum even...
"And he himself went over before them, praying and asking mercy before the Lord; and he bowed upon the earth seven times, until he met with his brother." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Ge...
"And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell upon his neck and kissed him, and they wept." In the plain Torah text, this is a moment of pure reconciliation. Targum Pseudo-...
Esau looked at the caravan and asked the question any returning brother might ask: "Who are these with you?" (Genesis 33:5). In the plain text Jacob answers simply, "the children w...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves a small, piercing detail from the moment the family bowed before Esau (Genesis 33:7). The handmaids and their children came forward. Leah and her c...
"I have seen the look of your face, and it is to me as the vision of the face of your angel." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves Jacob's most startling line to his brother (Genesis 3...
"Receive now the present which is brought to you, because it has been given me through mercy from before the Lord." Jacob's insistence in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 33:11) res...
Esau offered to travel alongside Jacob, and Jacob declined. The reason he gave, preserved in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 33:13), sounds like a note from a shepherd's almanac. "...
"I will lead on quietly alone, according to the foot of the work which is before me, and according to the foot of the instruction of the children; until the time that I come to my ...
"And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and sojourned there the twelve months of the year; and he built in it a midrasha, and for his flocks he made booths; therefore he called the name o...
"Then Jacob came in peace with all that he had to the city of Shekem, in the land of Canaan, in his coming from Padan Aram; and he dwelt near the city." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Gen...
"And the sons of Jacob had come up from the field when they heard. And the men were indignant, and very violently moved, because Shekem had wrought dishonour in Israel in lying wit...
Hamor and his son Shekem needed to convince the men of their city to undergo mass circumcision — an extraordinary demand. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 34:21) preserves the sales...
"And all they who came out of the gate of his city received from Hamor and from Shekem, his son; and they circumcised every male, all who came out of the gate of the city." Targum ...
"And it was on the third day, when they were weak from the pain of their circumcision, two of the sons of Jacob, Shimeon and Levi, the brothers of Dinah, took each man his sword, a...
"You have made my name to go forth as evil among the inhabitants of the land, among the Kenaanites and Phezerites. And I am a people of small number, and they will gather together ...
Simeon and Levi answered their father Jacob with a question that has rung through every generation since. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 34:31) gives them a longer speech than the...
"Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there, and make there an altar unto Eloha, who revealed Himself to you in your flight from before Esau your brother." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Gene...
"Put away the idols of the peoples which are among you, which you took from the temple of Shekem, and purify you from the uncleannesses of the slain whom you have, and change your ...
"We will arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make there an altar unto Eloha, who heard my prayer in the day when I was afflicted, and whose Memra was my helper in the way that I ...
"And they delivered into Jacob's hand all the idols of the people which were in their hands, which they had taken from the temple of Shekem, and the jewels that had been in the ear...
