6,276 texts · Page 125 of 131
When Israel stood dripping on the far shore of the Yam Suph, the Sea of Reeds, they sang of a hand. Not a sword, not an army, not even an angel. A hand. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (an ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not translate the Song of the Sea so much as it paints it. Where the Hebrew speaks of majesty, the Targum speaks of walls. Where the Hebrew says fire, t...
The Hebrew of the Song of the Sea says the waters "piled up." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives us a different picture entirely, more vivid and more strange: For by the Word from before...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 15:9) lets us hear Pharaoh speak. Not in narration, not in summary. In his own voice, crowing on the far shore before the waters closed. The Targu...
The Song of the Sea reaches its highest note with a question: Who is like Thee among the exalted gods, O Lord, who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing won...
Here Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives us one of its boldest expansions. The Hebrew says only: Thou stretched out Thy right hand, the earth swallowed them. The Targum opens this single ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 15:13) translates the end of the Song of the Sea not as a geographical promise but as a spiritual homecoming: Thou hast led in Thy mercy the peopl...
The Song of the Sea contains a strange prayer. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it: Through the power of Thy mighty arm, let the terrors of death fall upon them, let them be silent a...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan transforms the concluding verse of the Song of the Sea into a piece of cosmic architecture: Thou wilt bring them in, and plant them on the mountain of Thy sa...
(Exodus 15:18) in the Hebrew is a single line: The Lord shall reign forever and ever. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan expands it into a full coronation ceremony. When Israel beheld the sign...
The Hebrew text of (Exodus 15:19) only tells us that the horses of Pharaoh went into the sea and the waters returned. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds an almost Edenic detail that trans...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan keeps one detail from the Hebrew and clarifies another. Miriam, the sister of Aaron, is called the prophetess. She takes a tambourine, and all the women come...
If Moses's song is a national anthem, Miriam's song, as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it, is a moral theorem. She sang to the women: Let us give thanks and praise before the Lord,...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 15:22) slips in a phrase that seems geographical but is actually theological: they journeyed three days in the desert, empty of instruction, and f...
At Marah, where the water was too bitter to drink, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us what the Hebrew only hints at. Moses prayed, and the Lord showed him the bitter tree of Ardiphne,...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 15:26) translates the covenant at Marah with a surgeon's precision. The Word of the Lord says: If you will truly hearken to the Word of the Lord y...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 15:27) reads the stopover at Elim as a map of Israel's constitution: And they came to Elim; and in Elim were twelve fountains of water, a fountain...
When the grumbling began in the wilderness of Sin, the Holy One responded not with rebuke but with a test. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:4) renders it: Behold, I will cause ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:5) reads the Sabbath instructions for the manna as a halakhic footnote to the whole story: And on the sixth day they shall prepare what they se...
When the people grumbled for bread, Moses's reply, as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it, is a lesson in chain-of-command theology: By this you shall know, when the Lord prepareth y...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:13) paints the arrival of the manna with a detail you will not find in the Hebrew: the dew was holy, and it was prepared as a table, round abou...
The word manna itself, as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells it, was born from a question. The sons of Israel looked at the fine frost on the desert floor and said to one another Man Hu?...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:20) names names. The Hebrew only tells us that "some of them" kept manna overnight against Moses's word. The Targum identifies the culprits: Bu...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:21) preserves a detail almost invisible in the Hebrew but rich in the Sages' imagination: when the sun grew hot, the uncollected manna did not ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:23) gives us the first explicit teaching of Sabbath cookery in the Torah, and the Targumist relays it with a domestic precision that would be a...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:29) transforms a short Hebrew verse into the founding document of the Sabbath's geography: Behold, because I have given you the Sabbath, I gave...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:32) gives us one of the great commandments of Israel's memory: a jar of manna, set aside and preserved, so that later, less fortunate generatio...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:35) adds a detail that answers a question most readers do not think to ask: when exactly did the manna stop falling? The Targum says: And the c...
When the people again cried for water, the Holy One's instruction to Moses, as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders (Exodus 17:5), is quietly pointed: Pass over before the people, and ta...
When the people cried out for water at Rephidim, Moses did not simply strike any rock. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan insists on a precise geography: God said, "Behold, I will stand be...
Some places carry the scar of what happened there in their very name. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan explains that Moses called the site of the water-crisis "Temptation and Strife" — i...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells the story of Amalek's assault at Rephidim with details the plain Hebrew text does not preserve. "And Amalek came from the land of the south and lea...
When Amalek attacked, Moses turned to Joshua with instructions that reveal what kind of army Israel would fight with. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the order: "Choose such men...
The plain Hebrew of (Exodus 17:11) says Moses lifted his hands, and when he did, Israel prevailed. What were the raised hands actually doing? The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan leaves no r...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills in what the Hebrew leaves implicit: why Moses's hands grew heavy. "The hands of Moses were heavy, because the conflict was prolonged till the morro...
Victory in the Amalek battle came through Joshua, but the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan insists the sword was not his alone. "And Joshua shattered Amalek, and cut off the heads of the str...
After the battle ended, God gave Moses a strange commandment: not to celebrate, but to write. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads it this way: "Write this memorial in the book of the ...
After the Amalek battle, Moses built an altar — but the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the name he carved into it with surprising precision: "The Word of the Lord is my banner; f...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan closes the Amalek story with one of the most extraordinary vows in the Torah. "Because the Word of the Lord hath sworn by the throne of His glory, that H...
News travels, but rarely does it move a prince of Midian to action. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the turning point: "And Jethro, prince of Midian, the father-in-law of Moses,...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan locates Jethro's arrival at Israel's camp with unusual precision: "Jethro the father-in-law of Moses, and the sons of Moses, and his wife came to Moses a...
Few lines in the Torah are as unexpectedly tender as the one the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves at the moment of Jethro's arrival. He sends a message to Moses: "I, thy father-in-...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan stages Moses's greeting of Jethro with cinematic care: "Moses came forth from under the cloud of glory to meet his father-in-law, and did obeisance, and ...
When family reunites, the first thing out of the mouth is usually the story of what was survived. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records Moses's account to Jethro in condensed form: "M...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan specifies the three gifts that most moved Jethro: "Jethro rejoiced over all the good which the Lord had done unto Israel, and that He had given them mann...
A former priest of seven gods gives the first blessing-of-the-Name uttered by a convert. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records Jethro's words: "Blessed be the Name of the Lord who hat...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan captures Jethro's theological breakthrough in one line: "Now have I known that the Lord is stronger than all powers; for by the very thing by which the M...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan describes a remarkable scene: "Jethro took burnt offerings and holy sacrifices before the Lord, and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat bread ...
