204 passages in Other Sources
Individual passages from Targum Jonathan, shown in source order. Page 3 of 5.
The revelation at Sinai is awe-inspiring in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan on (Exodus 19) makes it terrifying. It adds details about God physically uprooting the mountain, I...
Leviticus 19 contains the famous command "love your neighbor as yourself." The Targum Jonathan's version is subtly different: "thou shalt love thy neighbour himself, as that though...
The Torah's most mysterious ritual, the red heifer, gets even stranger in the Targum's retelling. The standard text in (Numbers 19) simply describes burning a red cow and using its...
Targum Jonathan transforms the dry legal code of (Deuteronomy 19) into something visceral. Where the Torah simply warns that the blood avenger might overtake a fleeing killer, the ...
The familiar version gives us the basics: Sodom is doomed, Lot and his family are warned to flee, and they're given one crucial instruction: don't look back! But Lot's wife… she ju...
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 Tar...
The Ten Commandments in (Exodus 20) are a list in the Hebrew Bible. In the Targum Jonathan, they are a spectacle. Each commandment is a living entity of storm and flame that flies ...
Leviticus 20 prescribes death penalties for violations listed in the previous chapter. The Targum Jonathan specifies four distinct methods of execution that the Hebrew Bible leaves...
When Miriam died on the tenth day of the month Nisan, the well that had sustained Israel throughout their desert wanderings vanished. The Targum makes this connection explicit in a...
The Torah says do not fear superior armies. Targum Jonathan says something far more radical, all the enemy's horses and chariots "are accounted as a single horse and a single chari...
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 laws of (Exodus 21) sound harsh in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan systematically softens many of them, adding legal specifics that transform ancient punishments into som...
Leviticus 21 restricts which priests may serve at the altar. The Targum Jonathan expands the list of disqualifying blemishes with clinical precision that goes well beyond the Hebre...
After Aaron died, the protective Cloud of Glory vanished. Amalek, who had disguised himself by taking the throne of Arad, saw his opportunity. The Targum's version of (Numbers 21) ...
The unsolved murder ritual in (Deuteronomy 21) is already strange in the Torah, elders break a heifer's neck in a barren valley. Targum Jonathan makes it stranger and more spectacu...
The sun beats down, the sand stretches endlessly… and you’re thirsty. Really thirsty. What would you give for a cool, refreshing drink? Well, according to tradition, the Israelites...
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...
The property and social laws of (Exodus 22) are terse in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan expands them with legal reasoning, precise conditions, and moral commentary that tran...
Buried in Leviticus 22's rules about blemished offerings, the Targum Jonathan inserts one of the most beautiful passages in all of Targumic literature, a theology of sacrifice root...
The Targum's version of (Numbers 22) drops a bombshell in its opening verses that the Torah never states directly. Balak sent messengers not just to some foreign sorcerer, but to "...
The Torah's rule against cross-dressing in (Deuteronomy 22:5) is brief and absolute. Targum Jonathan rewrites it entirely, replacing the general prohibition with something specific...
One such place, according to our stories, revolves around an altar.. a very special altar. The Torah tells us that Abraham arrived at the place God had shown him and built an altar...
The familiar story is this: Abraham, tested by God, is commanded to sacrifice his beloved son. But what happened to Isaac in those heart-stopping moments? The familiar Genesis acco...
What really killed Sarah? We know the story. Abraham, commanded by God, takes his beloved son Isaac to Mount Moriah for a sacrifice. It's one of the most searing, most debated mome...
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, whe...
The laws of (Exodus 23) cover justice, festivals, and the conquest of Canaan. The Targum Jonathan on this chapter adds moral psychology, legal specifics, and one of the most striki...
Leviticus 23 lists every festival on the Jewish calendar. The Targum Jonathan transforms it from a schedule into an instruction manual, adding measurements, procedures, and theolog...
The Targum's version of (Numbers 23) reveals Bileam's inner strategy. When he looked at Israel, "he knew that strange worship was among them, and rejoiced in his heart." He spotted...
Targum Jonathan transforms the assembly laws of (Deuteronomy 23) with details that reshape who belongs to Israel and why. A man "born of fornication" cannot enter the congregation....
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 ...
The covenant ceremony at Sinai in (Exodus 24) is solemn in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan turns it into a visionary experience with one of the most haunting images in all of...
Leviticus 24 tells the story of a man who blasphemed God's Name and was stoned. The Targum Jonathan turns this brief account into a full courtroom drama with backstory, legal philo...
Bileam tried one last trick before delivering his final oracle. According to the Targum's version of (Numbers 24), he "set his face toward the wilderness, to recall to memory the w...
The Torah's divorce law in (Deuteronomy 24) states that a second husband may dislike the wife. Targum Jonathan adds something astonishing: "should they proclaim from the heavens ab...
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 instructions for building the Tabernacle in (Exodus 25) read like an architectural blueprint in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan adds theological meaning to nearly every m...
Leviticus 25 introduces the sabbatical year and the Jubilee. The Targum Jonathan addresses the most obvious objection: if the land rests every seventh year, what will people eat? G...
The place was called Shittim, and the Targum explains the name: it derives from shetutha, meaning foolishness and depravity. The Targum's version of (Numbers 25) describes Moabite ...
The levirate marriage ceremony in (Deuteronomy 25) is already dramatic in the Torah. Targum Jonathan turns it into theater. The brother-in-law's refusal must happen "before five of...
The Torah tells us that Isaac eventually married Rebecca. But did you know that, according to some traditions, they faced a long period of infertility? Twenty-two years, to be exac...
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...
The standard biblical text of (Exodus 26:1-37) reads like a construction manual. Ten curtains of fine linen, fifty gold clasps, boards of acacia wood, silver bases. The ancient Ara...
Leviticus 26 contains the blessings and curses, God's promise of abundance for obedience and a cascading nightmare for rebellion. The Targum Jonathan adds a breathtaking historical...
After the plague killed twenty-four thousand, God ordered a new census. The Targum's version of (Numbers 26) opens with a phrase absent from the Torah: "the compassions of the heav...
The first-fruits ceremony in (Deuteronomy 26) is beautiful in the Torah. Targum Jonathan makes it lavish. Where the Hebrew says simply to bring produce in a basket, the Targum adds...
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 Targ...
The bronze altar described in (Exodus 27:1-21) gets a practical upgrade in the Targum Jonathan. Where the Hebrew text simply says to build a grate of bronze netting, the Targum exp...
Leviticus 27 closes the book with a system for redeeming vows. And the Targum Jonathan stays remarkably close to the Hebrew, adding only small but telling details. When someone ded...
