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The laws of Passover refuse the distinction between insider and outsider. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:19) says that whoever eats leaven during the seven days will perish f...
Most translations of (Exodus 12:21) render Moses's words to the elders as a simple instruction: go and take a lamb. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan sharpens it into a rebuke. "Withdraw your...
The tool that saved Israel was the humblest plant in the garden. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:22) says that each household took a bunch of hyssop, dipped it in the lamb's b...
The difference between the plain Hebrew and the Aramaic of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:23) is the insertion of the Memra — the Word of the Lord. In the Hebrew, God passes ...
The name of the Pesach offering is usually translated "the sacrifice of the passing over." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:27) renames it in a way that catches the heart. In t...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:29) opens up a corner of the Exodus story that few readers notice. The verse says the firstborn of Egypt died, from Pharaoh's heir down to the ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:30) describes Pharaoh rising in the night, and with him every one of his servants and every surviving Mizraee. The great cry goes up. And then ...
Some of the geographic details in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan are staggering. On (Exodus 12:31), the Targum pauses to describe the map. The border of Mizraim extended four hundred phars...
The final hour of the Egyptian captivity is captured in a sentence of panic. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:33) describes how Moses, Aaron, and the sons of Israel heard Phara...
One of the most tender details in the Exodus is hidden in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:34). As Israel fled Mizraim, the people carried their unleavened dough on their heads...
The most famous number in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan's account of the Exodus is seven. On (Exodus 12:37), as Israel moves from Pilusin (Pelusium) toward Succoth, one hundred thirty tho...
The first matzah was not baked in an oven. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:39) says that Israel divided the unleavened dough they had brought out of Mizraim — the same dough t...
One of the great numerical puzzles of the Torah is solved openly by Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:40). The Hebrew says Israel lived in Mizraim for four hundred thirty years....
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:41) continues the chronological reconstruction begun the verse before. Thirty years passed between the Covenant Between the Pieces and the birt...
Of all the expansions in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, few are as beautiful as the Four Nights passage on (Exodus 12:42). The Aramaic says there are four nights written in the Book of Me...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:3) records the speech Moses gave on the morning after the Exodus. The Aramaic phrase from the house of the bondage of slaves stacks up two word...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:5) lists the peoples whose land is being promised: the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites. The Aramaic keeps the old Torah ...
The obligation to tell the Pesach story to the next generation is compressed into a single sentence in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:8). The Aramaic reads: "thou shalt instr...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:9) hears a strange instruction and decodes it into practice. The verse says the deliverance from Egypt shall be "a sign upon your hand, and...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:14) imagines the future. A son, born long after Egypt, looks at his father performing the strange ritual of redeeming a firstborn donkey wi...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:15) gives the father's answer when the son keeps asking. Why the firstborn? Because of one night. "When the Word of the Lord had hardened t...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:16) closes the tefillin section with a repetition that is not really a repetition. Once again the text says the Exodus must be inscribed an...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:17) answers a question the Torah only gestures at. Why did God not send Israel by the short coastal road through the land of the Philistine...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:18) takes a quiet verse and fills it with multiplication. The Hebrew says simply that Israel went up from Egypt. The Targum adds: "every on...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:19) tells a story the Hebrew only hints at. Moses, on the night Israel leaves Egypt, is not packing or leading. He is recovering a body. Jo...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:21) watches a miracle change its posture. By day the "glory of the Shekinah of the Lord" went before Israel in a column of cloud to lead th...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:2) turns a navigational instruction into a theological ambush. God tells Israel to turn around and camp before the "Mouths of Hiratha"—gapi...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:3) drops two shocking names into the Egyptian court. Pharaoh needs intelligence on the escaping Hebrews. Who gives it to him? Dathan and Ab...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:7) notices a strange detail in the chariot count. Pharaoh assembles six hundred choice chariots, plus all the chariots of his servants. But...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:9) pictures a scene the Hebrew leaves blank. While Pharaoh's chariots thunder toward them, what is Israel doing? The Targum says they are g...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:10) splits the scene at the Sea of Reeds into two simultaneous acts of worship. Behind Israel, Pharaoh has arrived at the camp and sees the...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:11) does not soften Israel's complaint. It sharpens it, and it names the complainers. They are not "the people." They are "the wicked gener...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:12) remembers an earlier argument. "Was not this the word that we spake to thee in Mizraim?" The Hebrews had told Moses in Egypt, back when...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:13) breaks Israel into four factions at the edge of the sea. Not "the people" united, but four parties, each with its own plan. The first s...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:14) finishes the fourfold answer from the verse before. Two parties still need their reply: the fighters and the screamers. To the company ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:15) catches a surprising reprimand. Moses is standing on the shore praying. God interrupts him: "Why standest thou praying before Me?" It i...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:19) watches a careful choreography. The Angel of the Lord, who had been leading Israel from the front, suddenly moves. He goes behind them....
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:20) describes the strangest cloud in the Torah. It comes between the camp of Israel and the camp of the Mizraee, and it has two sides simul...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:21) loads Moses's staff with cosmic freight. This is not a shepherd's walking stick. It is the great and glorious rod which was created at ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:22) gives the sea-splitting a measurement. The Torah says the waters were "a wall on their right and on their left." The Targum specifies: ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:24) picks a very specific moment for the Egyptian catastrophe. It happened in the morning watch—and the Targum tells us why that hour matte...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:25) gives the Mizraee a final moment of clarity. Their chariot wheels are broken—or in the Targum's alternate reading, made rough, gouged s...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:27) adds a disturbing line to the drowning. Moses stretches his hand, the sea returns at morning, the Mizraee flee from the oncoming waves—...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:28) closes the account of the Egyptian army with a single unforgiving sentence. "The waves of the sea returned, and covered the chariots, a...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:30) adds two uncanny words to the aftermath. Israel, safe on the far shore, looks back and sees the Mizraee—dead and not dead—cast upon the...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:31) records the moment Israel becomes a nation of faith. They have just watched the mightiest army in the world drown. Now they "feared bef...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 15:2) turns a line from the Song at the Sea into a vision of impossible witnesses. "This is our God, who nourished us with honey from the rock...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 15:3) softens a hard Hebrew line. The Torah reads "Adonai ish milchamah"—the Lord is a man of war. The phrase is startling. Is God really a "m...
