1,302 related texts · 51 related myths · Page 2 of 28
The Mekhilta weaves together several verses to demonstrate that God guards the faithful and remembers the faithfulness of the ancestors. The opening verse sets the theme: "The Lord...
The Egyptians' greatest military asset became the instrument of their destruction. The Mekhilta points to a devastating symmetry in the Exodus narrative that reveals God's measure-...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael presents a teaching that parallels and extends the previous one about divine wrath, now turning to the subject of divine warfare. The principle is the...
The Mekhilta makes a careful distinction in the verse "There fell upon them dread and terror" (Exodus 15:16). "Dread" fell upon the distant nations. "Terror" fell upon the near one...
Moses and Aaron stood before the entire assembly of Israel in the wilderness and made a promise that must have sounded almost too good to believe: "In the evening you will know tha...
The rabbis noticed a quiet escalation in the promises made to the patriarchs about the land. To Abraham, God said, “Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in th...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not translate the Song of the Sea so much as it paints it. Where the Hebrew speaks of majesty, the Targum speaks of walls. Where the Hebrew says fire, t...
At Marah, where the water was too bitter to drink, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us what the Hebrew only hints at. Moses prayed, and the Lord showed him the bitter tree of Ardiphne,...
When Amalek attacked, Moses turned to Joshua with instructions that reveal what kind of army Israel would fight with. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the order: "Choose such men...
It wasn't exactly smooth sailing, let me tell you. According to Legends of the Jews, the moment was ripe with miracles, all designed to solidify Joshua's authority in the eyes of t...
Take the story of the war against Amalek in (Exodus 17:9). Moses tells Joshua, "Choose men for us and go out and wage war with Amalek; tomorrow I will be standing on top of the hil...
And Moses said unto Joshua: “Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek” (Exod. 17:9). From this verse it is apparent that Moses treated his disciple Joshua as his equal. Thi...
The battlefield was set, the armies were engaged, but the real battle, according to Legends of the Jews, wasn't on the ground at all. It was happening on a nearby height, where Mos...
Legends of the Jews turns to Egypt — Manna from Heaven. Remember, the Israelites have just been freed from slavery in Egypt. They've witnessed incredible miracles, the splitting of...
The Mekhilta offers a pointed reading of the phrase "The chariots of Pharaoh" from the Song of the Sea, connecting Pharaoh's destruction at the Red Sea directly to his earlier crim...
That feeling, that connection, it's at the heart of this story from Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, Chapter 44. The Israelites are facing a fearsome foe: Amalek. Moses, wise and divinely c...
The sea splits, a nation escapes slavery. but according to some traditions, the heavenly hosts weren't exactly thrilled. to Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 238, a collection of rabbinic te...
When the Egyptians were drowning in the Red Sea, the ministering angels wanted to sing. God stopped them cold. According to Megillah 10b, He said: "My handiwork is drowning in the ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:32) gives us one of the great commandments of Israel's memory: a jar of manna, set aside and preserved, so that later, less fortunate generatio...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells the story of Amalek's assault at Rephidim with details the plain Hebrew text does not preserve. "And Amalek came from the land of the south and lea...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan closes the Amalek story with one of the most extraordinary vows in the Torah. "Because the Word of the Lord hath sworn by the throne of His glory, that H...
Heretics once cornered R. Simlai, a third-century sage of the land of Israel, and tried to trap him on a grammatical point. Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bereshit 7:1 records the exchang...
There was an incident involving Miriam daughter of the baker, who was taken captive with her seven sons. The emperor took them and placed them behind seven partitions. He brought t...
Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the Torah says "the sea returned towards morning to its eithano" (Exodus 14:27). That final word, eithano, becomes the subject of a...
(Exodus 15:1) "Az yashir Mosheh": Az ("then") sometimes signals the past and sometimes signals the future. The past: (Genesis 4:26) "Az men began", (Exodus 4:26) "Az she said", (Ex...
The Mekhilta pinpoints the exact moment when Israel first declared (Exodus 15:11): "Who is like You among the mighty, O Lord?" It was not during the plagues. It was not at the mome...
The Mekhilta notices something unusual about the verse "And Moses made Israel journey from the Red Sea" (Exodus 15:22). Rabbi Yehoshua points out that this particular journey was i...
After Israel's victory over Amalek at Rephidim, Moses built an altar and gave it a striking name. The verse records: "And Moses built an altar and he called its name 'the L-rd is m...
The Hebrew Bible says God "hardened Pharaoh's heart" and he pursued the Israelites (Exodus 14:8). Targum Onkelos translates this without softening or explaining. The hardening stan...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:2) turns a navigational instruction into a theological ambush. God tells Israel to turn around and camp before the "Mouths of Hiratha", gap...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:10) splits the scene at the Sea of Reeds into two simultaneous acts of worship. Behind Israel, Pharaoh has arrived at the camp and sees the...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:19) watches a careful choreography. The Angel of the Lord, who had been leading Israel from the front, suddenly moves. He goes behind them....
When Israel stood dripping on the far shore of the Yam Suph, the Sea of Reeds, they sang of a hand. Not a sword, not an army, not even an angel. A hand. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (an ...
The plain Hebrew of (Exodus 17:11) says Moses lifted his hands, and when he did, Israel prevailed. What were the raised hands actually doing? The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan leaves no r...
When the Israelites stood trapped between the sea ahead and Pharaoh's army behind, a single verse describes the moment the divine rescue began (Exodus 14:19): "And the angel of God...
The Song of the Sea declares: "A horse and its rider He has cast into the sea" (Exodus 15:1). But this statement raises an immediate question. Was there really only one horse? The ...
The Mekhilta draws a striking comparison between the experience of the prophet Jonah in the belly of the great fish and the fate of the Egyptian army at the Red Sea. And the Egypti...
When the Israelites grumbled in the wilderness about food, Moses and Aaron told them (Exodus 16:7): "And in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord." The Mekhilta de-Rabbi I...
It all begins with Marah. Remember the Israelites wandering in the desert after the Exodus? They’re thirsty, desperate, and finally, they find water! But… (Exodus 15:23) “they came...
Before God ever asked Israel to accept His kingship, He proved Himself through action. The Mekhilta lays out the sequence with deliberate precision, and the order matters. First, G...
The answer, of course, is manna. But the legends surrounding this heavenly food are even more astonishing than you might imagine. feeding 600,000 people, plus their families, every...
The Israelites certainly did, wandering in the desert after the Exodus. They had manna, that miraculous bread from heaven, but they yearned for meat. They grumbled, they complained...
It’s a very human thing. And according to Jewish tradition, it’s a mistake the Israelites made, with some rather painful consequences. The Israelites are fresh out of Egypt. They’v...
The Egyptians who chased the Hebrews into the sea did not drown quietly. According to Josephus, the water came crashing back accompanied by storms, rain, thunder, lightning, and th...
Moses struck a rock and a river came pouring out. Not a trickle, not a seep, a full river, bursting from dry stone in the middle of the desert, clear and sweet enough to make an en...
The Israelites in the desert definitely did. They craved meat, and boy, did they get it. But at what cost? The Torah tells us in Numbers (11:33) that “the flesh was still between t...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael drew a sharp distinction between two foods God gave the Israelites in the wilderness, and the difference had everything to do with how they were reque...
Moses and Aaron delivered a pointed warning to the Israelites who kept complaining about their food in the wilderness. The manna had been given with a "radiant countenance" because...
