6,276 texts · Page 127 of 131
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan transforms a cryptic self-defense law into a piece of moral clarity. "If the thing be as clear as the sun that he was not entering to destroy life, and o...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders a tight principle of agricultural damages. "If a man break in upon a field or a vineyard, and send in his beast to feed in another man's field, t...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders the law of entrusted property with precise legal architecture. "If the thief be found, he shall restore two for one. If the thief be not found, t...
Here is a case without witnesses. A neighbor entrusts an animal or a vessel to another, and the thing disappears. No thief is caught. No one can say what happened. Only two people ...
A shepherd watches over a borrowed flock. One day a lion drops out of the hills, or a wolf from the hedges, and by the time the shepherd reaches the scene, the animal is torn to pi...
You borrow your neighbor's tool. It breaks in your hands. Or you borrow his ox, and the animal dies while under your watch. Who swallows the loss? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus ...
A young woman has been seduced. Her future, by the standards of the ancient world, has been altered against her will — and often against her knowledge of what was being taken. What...
The sentence is short and severe. Whosoever sacrificeth to the idols of the Gentiles shall be slain with the sword, and his goods be destroyed; for ye shall worship only the Name o...
There is a kind of cruelty that is not visible in the moment. It lives in a tone of voice. A dismissive glance. A pressing of advantage against someone who has no one to defend him...
There is a warning at the heart of the covenant that has nothing to do with courts. It has to do with a woman weeping in a small room, and a child watching her weep, and no one els...
There is a moment when a poor person walks up to a wealthier neighbor and asks for a loan. The wealthier neighbor has a choice. He can treat the moment as a market opportunity. Or ...
A lender holds collateral. The borrower is poor enough that his only pledge was the cloak on his back. Evening comes. The air cools. What does the Torah require? Targum Pseudo-Jona...
The harvest is in. The grapes are crushed. The wine has just begun to settle in its jars. The farmer stands over his abundance and feels the old pull of hesitation. Perhaps next we...
A calf is born. A lamb is born. The farmer knows this one is destined for the altar — a firstborn male, dedicated to God from its first breath. What happens in the interval between...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 22:30) sets an unusual standard: holy men, tasting unconsecrated things innocently, shall you be before Me; but flesh torn by wild beasts a...
A man walks up to you in the market with a story. His neighbor, he says, has wronged him. He needs someone to stand with him at the gate, to nod when he speaks, to lend weight to h...
The courtroom fills. The elders have been talking. A consensus is forming. You are the last voice, and you can see which way the wind blows. The majority has already chosen its ver...
This verse is among the strangest in the Torah, because it seems to contradict everything else the Torah says about the poor. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:3) is blun...
You are walking along a road. Across the field you see an ox. It is the ox of a man you cannot stand. You know, privately, he has done wicked things. Your dislike is not petty — it...
The ox that wanders free was one thing. This case is harder. The donkey has collapsed under its load. Its owner — a man you dislike for good reason — is struggling to lift it. And ...
A court hands down its verdict. A man is acquitted. He walks free. And then, after the gavel has fallen, new evidence surfaces — evidence that proves he was guilty all along. Or th...
The gift arrives quietly. A gesture of friendship, perhaps. A token. The judge tells himself he can take it without being influenced. He is a man of integrity. He has ruled fairly ...
Six years you plow. Six years you harvest. Six years you measure the field by what it produces for you. Then the seventh year arrives — and the ledger flips. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan...
It would have been enough to say: rest on the seventh day. That alone would have been a radical gift in the ancient world. But the Torah cannot stop there. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan o...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:13) gives an unusual command: of all the precepts that I have spoken to you, be careful; and the names of the idols of the Gentiles reme...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:15) sets the pilgrimage: The feast of unleavened cakes thou shalt keep. Seven days thou art to eat unleavened bread, as I have instructe...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:16) names two festivals without naming them by their later names: the feast of the harvest first-fruits of the work thou didst sow in th...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:18) gives the Pesach offering a particular constraint: Sons of Israel My people, while there is leaven in your houses you may not immola...
This single verse holds two of the most important laws in Jewish life — and the Targum layers them tightly together. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:19) says: The first...
God is sending an angel to lead Israel through the wilderness. But this is no ordinary angel. The Targum's warning is severe and strange at the same time. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:22) makes a promise that sounds almost like a battle cry: if thou wilt indeed hearken to His Word, and do all that I speak by Him, I wil...
When Israel enters the Land, the Torah expects a specific kind of work — not only settlement, but demolition. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:24) commands: Thou shalt n...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:25) gives a promise that ties worship to health: you shall do service before the Lord our God and He will bless the provision of thy foo...
Before a single Israelite sword is drawn in the Land, God goes ahead. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:27) says: My terror will I send before thee, and will perturb all ...
The promise is stunning and, at first, confusing. God has committed to dispossess the Canaanite nations before Israel. Why not do it all at once? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:31) maps Israel's inheritance: I will set thy boundary from the sea of Suph, to the sea of the Philistaee, and from the desert unto the ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:33) gives a final warning before the conquest: Thou shalt not let them dwell in thy land, lest they cause thee to err, and to sin before...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:1) opens with an unexpected speaker: Michael, the Prince of Wisdom, said to Mosheh on the seventh day of the month, Come up before the L...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:3) describes the extraordinary moment before the covenant is sealed: Mosheh came and set before the people all the words of the Lord, an...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:4) describes what Moses built at dawn: Mosheh wrote the words of the Lord, and arose in the morning and builded an altar at the lower pa...
Before Aaron's household held the priesthood, someone else did. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:5) preserves this little-known tradition: Mosheh sent the firstborn of t...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:7) records the moment the covenant was sealed: Mosheh took the Book of the Covenant of the Law and read before the people; and they said...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:8) describes the most solemn act of the covenant ceremony: Mosheh took half of the blood which was in the basins, and sprinkled upon the...
When Nadab and Abihu lifted their eyes at Sinai and beheld the glory of the God of Israel, they saw something no prophet had described before. Beneath the divine throne, serving as...
The narrative in Exodus 24 troubles the ancient interpreters. Nadab and Abihu, the comely young sons of Aharon, ascended the mountain with the elders, beheld the God of Israel, and...
The plain Hebrew of (Exodus 24:12) reads simply that God promised Moses the tablets of stone, the Torah, and the commandment. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot leave it that spare....
The Targum on (Exodus 24:16) preserves a detail that the plain text rushes past. The glory of the Lord's Shekhinah rested on Mount Sinai, and the Cloud of Glory covered it for six ...
The plain Hebrew of (Exodus 24:17) says that the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. The T...
