Parshat Shemot4 min read

God Briefed Moses on Pharaoh's Refusal Before Moses Asked

The Targum made the foreknowledge explicit: Pharaoh would not release Israel not from fear of God but despite it, and Moses was told so in advance.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Land Named Before Anyone Arrived
  2. The Refusal Announced Before the Negotiation
  3. Foreknowledge as Armor Against Despair
  4. Two Audiences for One Commission

The Land Named Before Anyone Arrived

At the burning bush, the Holy One did not promise a vague rescue. He named the destination. I will bring you up out from the oppression of the Mizraee into the land of the Kenaanaee, and Hittaee, and Amoraee, and Pherizaee, and Hivaee, and Jebusaee, to the land that yields milk and honey. Six peoples. Six territories currently held by others. The promise was not abstract freedom. It was a specific legal transfer of specifically named territories currently under specific other occupants.

The Targum preserves the list with care because the list is the deed. Every people named was a land-holder whose current possession was being superseded by a prior divine grant to Abraham. The Holy One was not improvising a destination. He was executing a commitment made generations earlier, with the legal precision of a document that names the properties and the parties.

The Refusal Announced Before the Negotiation

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan lays the most difficult theological fact of the Exodus narrative on the table without softening it. It is manifest before Me, God tells Moses, that the king of Mizraim will not let you go. Not out of fear of the Mighty One. Not out of reverence. Only after My Memra has punished him with plagues.

The Targum adds to the Hebrew what the plain text implies but does not say: Pharaoh's stubbornness was constitutional. A lesser tyrant might bend from dread alone. Pharaoh would not. The foreknowledge was therefore not a prediction of human behavior in ordinary circumstances. It was a theological statement about the nature of Pharaoh's relationship to divine authority: he would not yield to its claim on him, only to its punishment of him.

Foreknowledge as Armor Against Despair

Why tell Moses in advance? The Targum's answer is pragmatic and humane. So that Moses would not mistake the refusals for failure. Every time Pharaoh said no, Moses would know it was part of the sequence that had been described to him at the burning bush. Each rejection, however hard it landed, was a step already drawn on the map he had been shown in the wilderness, not a wall against which the whole mission had run aground.

The foreknowledge was protection against despair. A messenger who expects success and meets refusal will read the refusal as a verdict on himself. A messenger who has been told the refusals are coming will read them as the rhythm of a process unfolding exactly as promised. Moses was being handed not only a destination and a demand, but the resilience to keep returning to a hardened court without crediting each closed door to his own inadequacy.

Two Audiences for One Commission

When the Holy One sent Moses and Aaron, He gave them a dual mission. The Torah says God spoke with Moses and with Aaron and gave them admonition for the sons of Israel, and sent them to Pharaoh. Two audiences. Two tones. Two messages carried by the same two brothers in opposite directions.

For Israel: admonition. The Aramaic word pikuda suggests something harder than consolation. The time for coaxing the slaves was over. They had failed to hear Moses's first speech and it had cost him his credibility with them. Now they would receive an admonition. Believe. Prepare. Be ready. For Pharaoh: the demand for release. Both messages were carried simultaneously, each appropriate to its recipient, each necessary to the movement that was coming.

Targum Pseudo JonathanExodusMosesPharaohAaronProphecy
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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 3:17Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus

At the burning bush, the Holy One does not merely announce a rescue. He swears it. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase preserved alongside the Torah, renders the divine pledge with an extra weight of solemnity: God says that by His Memra. His Word. He will lift the sons of Israel out from the oppression of the Egyptians.

The verse names the nations they will displace: Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, six peoples in a single breath, the land already mapped in the Holy One's mind. And the destination is not abstract freedom. It is a land that yieldeth milk and honey, a phrase the Targum preserves because it is meant to be tasted, not analyzed.

Why the Memra Matters Here

Throughout Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Memra serves as the agent of divine action. God does not simply speak. His Word acts. When the Targum says I have said in My Word, it is locking the promise into the very fabric of reality. The Exodus is not a hope; it is already spoken, which in this theology means already begun.

The takeaway: redemption in the Jewish imagination is never vague. It names the oppressor, names the land, names the peoples to be displaced, and names the taste of the future. When Moses climbs down from Sinai to announce this to the slaves, he carries a promise shaped like a map.

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Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 3:19Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus

Here is a difficult teaching: the Holy One tells Moses the outcome before the negotiation begins. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan puts it with unsettling clarity: it is manifest before Me that the king of Mizraim will not let you go. Not out of fear of the Mighty One, not out of reverence, not out of any sudden softening. But only after the Memra, the divine Word, has punished him with plagues.

Notice what the Targum adds to the biblical Hebrew. It insists that Pharaoh's refusal is not from fear of Him who is Mighty. A lesser tyrant might eventually bend simply out of dread. Pharaoh will not. His stubbornness is constitutional, almost metaphysical.

The Theology of Foreknowledge

Why tell Moses in advance? The sages of the Targumic tradition answer: so that Moses does not mistake Pharaoh's refusal for his own failure. When the first audience ends in disaster, bricks without straw, beatings in the field. Moses must remember that the script was handed to him at the burning bush.

The takeaway: foreknowledge is not fatalism. God tells Moses the outcome not to strip away his agency but to protect his resolve. The plagues are not a backup plan. They are the main plan, because some hearts only open under the weight of the Memra. The Haggadah will later teach that the story of the Exodus is not a negotiation that went wrong, it is a declaration of sovereignty staged in ten acts.

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Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 6:13Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus

The Holy One does not argue with Moses. He simply issues a new set of orders. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the dual commission: the Lord spake with Mosheh and with Aharon, and gave them admonition for the sons of Israel, and sent them to Pharoh, king of Mizraim, to send forth the children of Israel from the land of Mizraim.

Notice the two audiences. First, admonition for the sons of Israel. The slaves, who had failed to hear Moses' five-verb speech, will now receive something sharper, an admonition. The Aramaic word pikuda suggests a command rather than a consolation. The time for coaxing has ended.

One Commission, Two Directions

Second, sent them to Pharoh. The same two brothers carry the same Word in opposite directions. To Israel, the admonition is: believe, prepare, be ready. To Pharaoh, the message is: send them forth.

The Targum's verb spake with (rather than spake to) is deliberate. The Holy One does not lecture Moses and Aaron from above; He speaks with them, a collaborative briefing. The leadership of the Exodus is a partnership between heaven and two brothers, and the Targum carefully preserves that partnership language.

The sages of the Targumic tradition see this verse as the hinge between the failed first attempt and the plague sequence that follows. Moses had despaired. God does not address the despair directly. He simply issues new assignments. The despair, left behind by the weight of the mission, dissolves under the force of renewed commission.

The takeaway: when prayer becomes paralysis, the Jewish imagination prescribes movement. The Holy One does not always answer Moses' how? with explanation. Sometimes He answers with a new task and the expectation that the doing will outpace the doubting. The Exodus is about to begin because two brothers stopped asking questions and started walking.

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