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1This paragraph has no connection with the theme of this chapter, which is an extensive commentary on Aboth 5. Such commentary begins with §2. Accordingly it has been suggested tha...
THERE WERE TEN GENERATIONS FROM ADAM TO NOAH. What need is there for mankind to [know] this? It is to teach you that although those generations provoked Him continually, the Holy O...
THERE WERE TEN GENERATIONS FROM NOAH TO ABRAHAM. What need is there for mankind to [know] this? It is to teach that all those generations were provoking Him, and there was not one ...
The opening verse of Deuteronomy lists a string of place names — "in the wilderness, in the Arabah, over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Di-zah...
TEN MIRACLES WERE WROUGHT FOR OUR FATHERS IN JERUSALEM:1The current editions read ‘in the Temple’. This is an error, because the list of miracles wrought in the Temple is given lat...
The men of Sodom will neither come to life [in the hereafter] nor be brought to judgment,1The eschatological doctrines assumed here are that some time in the future, after the Mess...
There are seven creations [in the universe] in ascending degrees of importance. High above everything God created the firmament. Above1i.e. of greater importance and usefulness. th...
SEVEN KINDS OF PUNISHMENT COME UPON THE WORLD FOR SEVEN CARDINAL TRANSGRESSIONS. IF SOME GIVE THEIR TITHES AND OTHERS DO NOT, THERE COMES A FAMINE THROUGH DROUGHT.1Aboth 5:11 (Sonc...
Five persons are not granted forgiveness:1The meaning is not that the doors of forgiveness are for ever shut against them, but that they are so hardened in sinning that they will n...
There are four acts that a man performs, the fruits of which he enjoys in this world, while the capital is laid up for him in the world to come. They are: honouring father and moth...
R. SIMEON SAID: THERE ARE THREE CROWNS: THE CROWN OF THE TORAH, THE CROWN OF THE PRIESTHOOD, AND THE CROWN OF ROYALTY; BUT THE CROWN OF A GOOD NAME EXCELS THEM ALL.1Aboth 4:17 (Son...
The Hebrew Bible opens with a spare, magnificent account of creation in seven days. The Targum Jonathan, an ancient Aramaic translation composed between the 2nd and 7th centuries C...
(Genesis 2:7) says God formed man from "the dust of the ground." The Targum Jonathan says something far more specific. God took dust from the place of the Beit HaMikdash (בית המקדש...
The Hebrew text of (Genesis 3) says Eve "saw that the tree was good for food." The Targum Jonathan says she saw Sammael, the angel of death, standing right there, and was afraid. T...
(Genesis 4:8) contains one of the strangest silences in the Torah. It says "Cain spoke to Abel his brother," and then nothing. The sentence just stops. The next thing that happens ...
(Genesis 5:24) is one of the most mysterious verses in the Torah. "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." That is all the Hebrew says. No explanation of where he...
The Hebrew Bible says the "sons of God" saw that human women were beautiful, and took wives from among them (Genesis 6:2). That's all it says. The Targum Jonathan rewrites the scen...
The Hebrew Bible says God told Noah to enter the ark, and that rain would begin in seven days (Genesis 7:4). It does not explain why seven days. The Targum Jonathan does, and the e...
When the Flood ended, the Hebrew Bible says God sent a wind to dry the earth (Genesis 8:1). The Targum Jonathan says God sent "the wind of mercies." One word changes the theology. ...
The Hebrew Bible says Noah planted a vineyard (Genesis 9:20). The Targum Jonathan says he "found a vine which the river had brought away from the garden of Eden." This single addit...
Genesis 10 is the Table of Nations—a genealogy listing Noah's descendants and where they settled. In the Hebrew Bible, it reads like a census. The Targum Jonathan turns it into a p...
The Hebrew Bible says God "came down" to see the Tower of Babel and confused humanity's language (Genesis 11:7). But the ancient Aramaic translators of Targum Jonathan told a radic...
When God blessed Abraham in (Genesis 12:3), the Hebrew says simply: "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse." A universal promise. But the ancient Ar...
In (Genesis 13:10), Lot "lifted up his eyes and saw the whole plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere." A simple observation about good farmland. But the ancient A...
Genesis 14 is a war chapter—four kings against five, a battle in the Valley of Siddim, Lot taken captive, Abraham riding to the rescue. The Hebrew text is spare and military. But t...
Abraham had just defeated four kings and rescued his nephew. In (Genesis 15:1), God simply says "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." But the ancien...
The Hebrew Bible calls Hagar a "maidservant." The Targum Jonathan, an ancient Aramaic translation of the Torah composed in the land of Israel, calls her a daughter of Pharaoh. That...
Genesis 17 records the moment God commands Abraham to circumcise himself at ninety-nine years old. The Hebrew text says Abraham "fell on his face" when God spoke to him. It reads l...
The Hebrew Bible says three "men" appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre (Genesis 18:2). The Targum Jonathan tells you exactly what they were and exactly why each one came. They ...
The destruction of Sodom in Genesis 19 is swift and merciless. Fire and brimstone rain down, and the city is gone. But the Targum Jonathan inserts a detail that changes everything:...
Abraham tells a foreign king that Sarah is his sister. Again. He already pulled this move with Pharaoh in Egypt (Genesis 12:13). Now in Gerar, he does it a second time—and the Targ...
The Hebrew Bible tells us God remembered Sarah and she bore a son. The ancient Aramaic translators wanted to know more. They added a detail the Torah left out: God performed a mira...
The Binding of Isaac is terrifying in the Torah. In the Targum, it is something else entirely. Isaac was not a passive child led to slaughter. He was thirty-six years old, and he v...
Sarah died at one hundred and twenty-seven years old. The Torah records the number. The Targum records the aftermath: Abraham came from "the mountain of worship"—Mount Moriah, wher...
Abraham made his servant Eliezer swear an oath by placing his hand on the mark of circumcision. The Torah says "under my thigh." The Targum says exactly what it means: the section ...
Abraham married again after Sarah's death. The Torah calls his new wife Keturah. The Targum reveals her true identity in a single phrase: "She is Hagar, who had been bound to him f...
The Hebrew Bible tells a straightforward story about Isaac digging wells in Gerar and feuding with the Philistines over water rights (Genesis 26). The Targum Jonathan transforms it...
Genesis 27 is one of the most psychologically complex chapters in the Torah—the aged Isaac, blind and dying, tricked by his own wife and son into blessing the wrong heir. The Targu...
The story of Jacob's ladder in Genesis 28 is one of the most famous visions in all of scripture—a ladder reaching to heaven, angels ascending and descending. But the Targum Jonatha...
Genesis 29 tells the story of Jacob arriving in Haran, meeting Rachel at a well, and being deceived by Laban into marrying Leah first. The Targum Jonathan injects dialogue, backsto...
Genesis 30 describes the intense rivalry between Rachel and Leah as they compete to bear Jacob's children. The Targum Jonathan turns this domestic drama into a prophetic saga where...
The standard Bible tells you Rachel stole her father's household gods when Jacob fled Laban's house. The Targum Jonathan, an ancient Aramaic translation from roughly the 1st-2nd ce...
The wrestling match at the Jabbok River is one of the most mysterious scenes in all of Genesis. A man fights Jacob in the dark, and by morning Jacob has a new name and a limp. The ...
When Esau and Jacob finally reunited after twenty years of separation, the Bible says Esau ran to his brother, embraced him, kissed him, and they wept (Genesis 33:4). It sounds lik...
The story of Dinah in Genesis 34 is already one of the most violent chapters in the Torah. The Targum Jonathan, the ancient Aramaic translation, does not soften it. Instead, it sha...
Genesis 35 records some of the most consequential events in Jacob's life—Rachel's death, the birth of Benjamin, and Jacob's return to his father Isaac. The Targum Jonathan, the anc...
The standard Genesis 36 reads like a dry census of Esau's descendants. But the Targum Jonathan, the ancient Aramaic interpretive translation, quietly inserts theological details th...
Joseph's sale into slavery is one of the most dramatic episodes in Genesis. But the Targum Jonathan adds details that the Hebrew original never mentions, turning a family tragedy i...
