Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus Reader

Was as not this the word that we spake to thee in Mizraim, Let the Lord manifest Himself over us and judge, saying, Desist from us, and we will serve the Mizraee? for it is better for us to serve the Mizraee than to perish in the desert.

Four parties were made (among) the sons of Israel on the shore of the Weedy Sea: one said, Let us go down into the sea; another said, Let us return into Mizraim; another said Let us set against them the line of battle; and another said Let us raise a cry against them, and confound them. Unto the company which said, Let us go down to the sea, spake Mosheh, Fear not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which will be wrought for you today. To the company which said, Let us return into Mizraim Mosheh said, You shall not return; for, though you see the Mizraee today, you will see them no more for ever.

To the company who said, Let us set against them the line of battle, said Mosheh, Contend not; for the victory shall be wrought among you from the presence of the Lord. And to the company who said. Let us raise a cry against them, Mosheh said, Be silent; and give the glory, and praise, and exaltation to your God.

And the Lord said to Mosheh, Why standest thou praying before Me? Behold, the prayers of My people have come before thy own: speak to the sons of Israel, that they go forward;

And the Angel of the Lord who led the way before the hosts of Israel went and came behind them; and the column of the Cloud went from before and stood behind them: because the Mizraee threw darts and stones at the Israelites, but the Cloud intercepted them

and it came between the host of Israel and the host of the Mizraee; a cloud, one half of which was light and one half darkness. On the one side it darkened upon the Mizraee, and on the other side it shined upon Israel all night; and one host did not attack the other all the night.

And Mosheh stretched out his hand over the sea, with the great and glorious rod which was created at the beginning, and on which were engraven and set forth the Great and Glorious Name, and the ten signs which had smitten the Mizraee, and the three fathers of the world, and the six mothers, and the twelve tribes of Jakob: and straightway the Lord brought a vehement east wind upon the sea all night, and made the sea dry; and divided the waters into twelve divisions according to the twelve tribes of Jacob.

And the children of Israel went through the midst of the sea upon the ground, and the waters were congealed like a wall, three hundred miles on their right hand and on their left.

And it was that in the morning watch, at the time that the powers on high come to offer praise, the Lord looked forth with anger upon the hosts of the Mizraee from the column of fire, to hurl upon them flakes of fire and hail, and from the column of cloud, and confounded the host of the Mizraee

and He brake (or, made rough) the wheels of Pharoh's carriages, so that they drave them with hardship, and that they went on and left them behind. And the Mizraee said one to another, Let us flee from the people of the house of Israel; for this is the Word of the Lord who fought for them in Mizraim.

And Mosheh stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned at the time of the morning unto its strength; and the Mizraee fled from before its waves. And the Lord strengthened the Mizraee in the midst of the sea, that they should not (soon) die in the midst of it, that they might receive the punishment which had been sent to them.

And the waves of the sea returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen and all the host of Pharoh who had gone in after them, into the sea, not one among them was left.

That day the Lord redeemed and saved Israel from the hand of the Mizraee; and Israel saw the Mizraee, dead and not dead, cast upon the shore of the sea.

And Israel saw the power of the mighty hand by which the Lord had wrought the miracles in Mizraim; and the people feared before the Lord, and believed in the Name of the Word of the Lord, and in the prophecies of Mosheh His servant.

The Lord is Mighty, and greatly to be feared over all the world. He spake in His Word, and became to me a God of salvation. From their mothers' breasts even the children have given signs with their fingers to their fathers, and said This is our God, who nourished us with honey from the rock, and with oil from the stone of clay, at the time when our mothers went forth upon the face of the field to give us birth, and leave us there; and He sent an angel who washed us and enwrapped us; and now will we praise Him: He is the God of our fathers, and we will exalt Him.

The sons of Israel said, The Lord is a man making war for us: from generation to generation He maketh known His power unto the people of the house of Israel. The Lord is His Name; according to His Name, so is His power; His Name shall be blessed for ever and ever.

Thy right hand, O Lord, how glorious is it in power? Thy right hand, O Lord, hath cut off the adversaries of Thy people who rose against them to do them hurt.

And in the plenitude and greatness of Thy majesty Thou hast destroyed the walls of the enemies of Thy people. Thou wilt pour upon them Thy fierce anger, Thou wilt consume them as the burning fire prevails over the stubble.

For by the Word from before Thee the waters became heaps; they stood, as if bound like skins that confine flowing water, and the depths were congealed in the flood of the great sea.

Pharoh the wicked, the hater and adversary, did say, I will follow after the people of the sons of Israel, and will lay waste their camp on the bank of the sea: I will set war in array against them, and kill them, small and great, despoil them of much spoil, bring them back into great captivity, and divide their substance among my people who make war: and when my soul is satisfied with the blood of their slain, I will sheathe my sword, having, destroyed them with my right hand.

Who is like Thee among the exalted gods, O Lord, who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders and manifestations for Thy people, the house of Israel?

The sea spake to the earth, Receive thy children: but the earth spake to the sea, Receive thy murderers. And the sea was not willing to overwhelm them, and the earth was not willing to swallow them up. The earth was afraid to receive them, lest they should be required from her in the day of the great judgment in the world to come, even as the blood of Habel will be required of her: whereupon Thou, O Lord, didst stretch forth Thy right hand in swearing to the earth that in the world to come they should not be required of her. And the earth opened her mouth and consumed them.

Thou hast led in Thy mercy the people whom Thou hast redeemed, and given them the heritage of the mountain of Thy sanctuary, the place of the dwelling of Thy holy Shekinah.

Through the power of Thy mighty arm, let the terrors of death fall upon them, let them be silent as a stone, till the time when Thy people, O Lord, shall have passed the streams of Arnona, till the time when Thy people whom Thou didst ransom shall have crossed the dividing current of Jabeka.

Thou wilt bring them in, and plant them on the mountain of Thy sanctuary, the place which Thou hast provided before the throne of Thy glory, the house of Thy holy Shekinah, which Thou, O Lord, hast prepared, Thy sanctuary that with both hands Thou hast established.

When the people of the house of Israel beheld the signs and manifestations which the Holy One, whose Name be praised, had done at the sea of Suph, and the power of His hand, the children of the captives answering said one to the other, Come, and let us set the crown of majesty on the head of our Redeemer, who maketh to pass over, and passeth not; who changeth, and is not changed; whose is the crown of the kingdom; the King of kings in this world; whose, too, is the kingdom in the world to come, for ever and ever.

For Pharoh's horses with his chariots and horsemen went into the sea, and the Lord made the waters of the sea to return upon them; but the sons of Israel walked upon the land in the midst of the sea, and there did spring up sweet fountains and trees yielding food and verdure and ripe fruits, (even) on the ground of the sea.

And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aharon, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women came out after her, dancing with tambourines and playing on instruments.

And Miriam sang to them, Let us give thanks and praise before the Lord, for might and supremacy are His; above the proud He is glorified, and above the lofty He is exalted. When the wicked, Pharoh in his pride followed after the people of the sons of Israel, his horses and his chariots did He cast and drown in the sea of Suph.

And Mosheh made Israel go forward from the sea of Suph, and they went forth into the wilderness of Chalutsa. And they journeyed three days in the desert, empty of instruction, and found no water.

And he prayed before the Lord, and the Lord showed him the bitter tree of Ardiphne; and he wrote upon it the great and glorious Name, and cast it into the midst of the waters, and the waters were rendered sweet. And there did the Word of the Lord appoint to him the ordinance of the Sabbath, and the statute of honouring father and mother, the judgments concerning wounds and bruises., and the punishments wherewith offenders are punished; and there he tried (them) with the tenth trial,

and said, If you will truly hearken to the Word of the Lord your God, and do that which is right before Him, and will listen to His precepts and keep all His statutes, all those evil things that I laid upon the Mizraee I will not lay upon thee: but if thou wilt transgress against the word of the law, upon thee shall they be sent. If thou convert, I will remove them from thee; for I am the Lord thy Healer.

And they came to Elim; and in Elim were twelve fountains of water, a fountain for each tribe; and seventy palm-trees, corresponding with the seventy elders of Israel: and they encamped there by the waters.

And the Lord said to Mosheh, Behold, I will cause the bread which hath been laid up for you from the beginning to descend from heaven: and the people shall go out and gather the matter of a day by the day, that I may try them whether they will keep the commandments of My law or not.

And on the sixth day they shall prepare what they set before them to eat on the day of the Sabbath; and they shall mix in the houses and communicate in their dwellings, so that by carrying this to that, they may have double of that which they gather from day to day.

And Mosheh said, By this you shall know, when the Lord prepareth you at evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to satisfy, that your complainings wherewith you complain against Him are heard before the Lord. And we, what are we accounted? Your complaints are not against us, but against the Word of the Lord.

And it came to pass, that in the evening the pheasants came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a fall of holy dew, prepared as a table, round about the camp:

And the sons of Israel beheld, and wondered, and said, a man to his companion, Man Hu? for they knew not what it was. And Mosheh said to them, It is the bread which hath been laid up for you from the beginning in the heavens on high, and now the Lord will give it you to eat.

But (some of them) hearkened not to Mosheh: Dathan and Abiram, men of wickedness, did reserve of it till the morning; but it produced worms and putrefied; and Mosheh was angry with them.

And they gathered from the time of the dawn until the fourth hour of the day, every man according to his eating; but at the fourth hour, when the sun had waxed hot upon it, it liquefied, and made streams of water, which flowed away into the Great Sea; and wild animals that were clean, and cattle, came to drink of it, and the sons of Israel hunted, and ate them.