204 passages in Other Sources
Individual passages from Targum Jonathan, shown in source order. Page 4 of 5.
The five daughters of Zelophehad, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, heard that the Promised Land would be divided only among males and immediately went to the court. The Ta...
The Torah says write the law on plastered stones after crossing the Jordan. Targum Jonathan says write it "with writing deeply engraven and distinct, which shall be read in one lan...
The knife is raised. His father, Abraham, is about to fulfill what he believes is God's command. Terror? Certainly. But according to some traditions, something else happened to Isa...
Forget fig leaves – the story is far more dazzling than that! According to tradition, before the infamous bite of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve weren't just naked, they were cl...
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 Jonath...
The priestly garments in (Exodus 28:1-43) are already elaborate in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan turns them into theological weapons. Every piece of clothing becomes an ins...
The Targum's version of (Numbers 28) transforms a dry sacrificial calendar into a theology of continuous atonement. Where the Torah simply lists the daily offerings, the Targum exp...
The blessings of (Deuteronomy 28) receive domestic detail. Being blessed "when you go out" becomes "blessed shall you be in your coming in to your houses of instruction, and blesse...
Angels is often remembered as perfect messengers, but Jewish tradition sometimes paints a more complex picture. to a tale of angelic disobedience, punishment, and eventual redempti...
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...
The consecration ceremony of (Exodus 29:1-46) appears in the Hebrew Bible as a solemn ritual. The Targum Jonathan adds precise details that heighten both its gravity and its tender...
The shofar on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) was not just a call to repentance. According to the Targum's version of (Numbers 29), the trumpets served a cosmic combat function...
The covenant at Moab in (Deuteronomy 29) is addressed to the Israelites standing there. Targum Jonathan expands the audience to infinity: "all the generations which have arisen fro...
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 incense altar, the half-shekel tax, and the anointing oil in (Exodus 30:1-38) all receive remarkable expansions in the Targum Jonathan. What the Hebrew text presents as ritual ...
The Targum's version of (Numbers 30) adds specific ages to the Torah's vow laws, transforming abstract principles into concrete legal thresholds. A male becomes bound by his vows a...
The Torah's promise of return from exile in (Deuteronomy 30) is hopeful. Targum Jonathan makes it messianic. Where the Hebrew says God will gather the scattered, the Targum says: "...
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 appointment of Bezalel and the commandment of Sabbath in (Exodus 31:1-18) culminate in one of the most extraordinary images in all of Targum Jonathan: the physical description ...
The war against Midian in the Targum's version of (Numbers 31) is a supernatural thriller. Twelve thousand Israelite soldiers went out with Phinehas carrying "the Urim and Thummim ...
Targum Jonathan opens (Deuteronomy 31) with Moses entering not a tent but "the tabernacle of the house of instruction", a study hall. Even at the threshold of death, the setting is...
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 ...
The golden calf episode in (Exodus 32:1-35) is already one of the Torah's most dramatic stories. The Targum Jonathan makes it wilder, stranger, and more theologically loaded than a...
The tribes of Reuben and Gad had enormous herds, and when they saw the conquered territory east of the Jordan, they wanted to stay. The Targum's version of (Numbers 32) captures Mo...
The Song of Moses in (Deuteronomy 32) is the Torah's great poem. Targum Jonathan wraps it in an elaborate theological commentary that dwarfs the original. It opens with Moses choos...
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...
After the golden calf, God told Moses something devastating in (Exodus 33:1-23). The Shekinah (the Divine Presence) would not travel with Israel anymore. The Targum Jonathan turns ...
The Targum transforms the Torah's bare itinerary of Israel's wilderness journeys in (Numbers 33) into an annotated guide of miracles and disasters. Every campsite gets a story, a n...
The Blessing of Moses in (Deuteronomy 33) gets the full Targum treatment, every tribe's destiny expanded, every blessing loaded with specifics the Torah never mentions. It opens wi...
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...
The second set of tablets in (Exodus 34:1-35) carries a weight the first set never had. These were carved by human hands, not divine ones. But the Targum Jonathan adds something to...
The Targum's version of (Numbers 34) maps the Promised Land's borders with a level of geographic specificity that goes far beyond the Torah's terse boundary markers. The southern b...
The death of Moses in (Deuteronomy 34) is eight verses in the Torah. Targum Jonathan turns it into one of the most elaborate death scenes in all of ancient Jewish literature. From ...
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 an...
The collection of materials for the Tabernacle in (Exodus 35:1-35) is, in the Hebrew Bible, a straightforward account of voluntary giving. The Targum Jonathan inserts miracles that...
The Targum's version of (Numbers 35) contains one of the most radical theological claims in all of ancient Jewish literature. It explains why a manslayer confined to a city of refu...
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...
The construction of the Tabernacle in (Exodus 36:1-38) begins with a problem no ancient building project should have had. The people brought too much. Morning after morning, they a...
The final chapter of Numbers in the Targum's version (Numbers 36) resolves a legal crisis that the daughters of Zelophehad had inadvertently created. The heads of the clan of Gilea...
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...
Bezalel built the Ark, the Table, the Candelabrum, and the Incense Altar in (Exodus 37:1-29). The Hebrew text describes each object's dimensions. The Targum Jonathan explains how a...
Genesis 38, the story of Judah and Tamar, is already one of the most dramatic chapters in the Torah. The Targum Jonathan amplifies every beat, adding prayers, prophecies, and moral...
The construction inventory in (Exodus 38:1-31) is mostly numbers and measurements. But the Targum Jonathan inserts one of the most beautiful and surprising details in its entire tr...
The story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife in Genesis 39 is already tense. The Targum Jonathan ratchets the tension higher by adding theological motives, divine intervention, and a tr...
The completion of all the Tabernacle's furnishings and garments in (Exodus 39:1-43) should feel repetitive. The craftsmen were building exactly what God commanded. But the Targum J...
Genesis 40 tells a straightforward story: two prisoners dream, Joseph interprets, one lives, one dies. The Targum Jonathan transforms this episode into a prophetic vision of Israel...
The final chapter of Exodus (Exodus 40:1-38) is, in the Hebrew Bible, the moment God's Presence fills the completed Tabernacle. The Targum Jonathan turns this moment into a prophet...
The standard Genesis account of Joseph's rise to power in Egypt is dramatic enough. But the ancient Aramaic translation known as Targum Jonathan layers in theological details that ...
