2,302 related texts · 12 related myths · Page 1 of 48
King David grew old, and no one could warm him (1 Kings 1:1). The doctors tried blankets. They tried attendants. His body, which had survived lions and bears and Goliath and armies...
"And Sarah's lifetime was one hundred years and twenty years and seven years" (Genesis 23:1). Rashi offers his famous comment: at one hundred she was like twenty (free from sin), a...
"Jacob fled to the land of Aram" (Hosea 12:13). The prophet is not describing geography, he is making a theological point about the interior life. Isaiah completes it: "My people, ...
Some blessings are said with eyes closed. This one was said with eyes wide open. The servant has just discovered that the girl who watered his ten camels is also the grand-niece of...
This is one of those verses where the Targum tells you a whole murder plot the Torah never mentions. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:33) says the meal set before Eliezer was ...
A careful reader notices the sequence. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:47), Eliezer describes what he did at the well in a very particular order. First, he asked Rivekah w...
King David was sick and bedridden for thirteen years. His enemies waited. "When will he die and his name perish?" (Psalm 41:6). The midrash reports that seven sheep were laid besid...
"Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob" (Jeremiah 2:4). Not the word of Jeremiah. Not the word of the priesthood. The word of the Lord, direct, unmediated, demanding attentio...
When Eliezer retells the story to Laban and Bethuel, he quotes Abraham directly. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:40) preserves the quote exactly as Abraham had spoken it: "Th...
When Abraham came to the cave of Machpelah to bury Sarah, he did not find the cave empty. According to the Yalkut Chadash, the first couple was already there, and they were not ple...
The negotiation for Sarah's burial unfolds with legal care. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:8), Abraham approaches the gathered Hittite elders not with authority but with ...
Abraham is old, and the question of Isaac's wife must be settled. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:2), the Aramaic makes explicit what the Hebrew only hints at: Abraham tel...
Jacob, as he lay dying, was very particular about where he wanted to be buried. Not just anywhere in the Holy Land, but specifically in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron, alongside A...
Four hundred shekels of silver. That was the price Abraham paid for a patch of dirt in Hebron, just enough ground to bury his wife. Sarah had died at one hundred and twenty-seven y...
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...
The midrash on Abraham's hospitality in Genesis 18 notices something small and opens it into a whole theology. The patriarch had just made a covenant with the peoples of the land. ...
The servant has arrived. He is standing at the well outside the city of Nachor, and he has to figure out, in a single afternoon, which woman at that well is meant to become the mot...
There is a phrase in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan that can stop you in your tracks. "And it was in that little hour, while he had not ceased to speak, that, behold, Rivekah came forth" (...
The trip home was supposed to take weeks. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:61) says it took a day. "And as the way was shortened to him in his journey to Padan Aram, so was it...
How will God judge the dead? The body will claim innocence, it is just dirt without a soul. The soul will claim innocence, it is pure spirit without a body. Neither sinned alone. A...
Beyond just having it, I mean. What does it take to establish a claim that lasts for generations? Chapter 24 of the Book of Jasher, an ancient text referenced in the Bible itself (...
Rebekah is pregnant at last. And the pregnancy is not gentle. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:22) describes the twins inside her pressing against each other like men at war. ...
When Sarah died, Abraham aged overnight. The midrash says it plainly: old age came upon him the moment he buried her, as the verse notes, "Abraham was old, coming with days" (Genes...
This is the verse the Maggid saves for last, the one where grief and joy shake hands. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:67) describes what happened when Isaac brought Rebekah i...
Eliezer is a wise servant. He foresees a problem before he sets out. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:5), the Aramaic renders his careful question: suppose the woman may no...
"Listen to Me, O Jacob, Israel, whom I have called: I am He, I am the first, and I am the last as well" (Isaiah 48:12). God speaks with the full weight of eternity, before everythi...
A small verse. A large courtesy. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:32) describes the moment after the greeting: the servant enters, the camels are unharnessed, straw and proven...
Given permission to speak, Eliezer opens with a sentence that is not small talk. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:35) has the servant list the blessings God has poured on Abra...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:43) gives us something the Torah rarely does. A narrator narrating himself. Eliezer is now sitting at Laban's table, and he is walking his hos...
When Jacob arrived in Haran after his kefitzat ha-derekh, the folding of the road, he came to a well in a field (Genesis 29:2). Three flocks of sheep lay beside it, and a great sto...
In a moment easy to skip, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 47:30) flags a subtle refusal. Jacob had asked Joseph to place his hand on the mark of the covenant and swear to bu...
Abraham and Isaac returned to Beer-sheba after the binding on Mount Moriah, but Sarah wasn't there. A knot of worry tightens in their hearts. Where is she? They learn she's gone to...
That feeling, that connection, is something Jewish tradition has explored for centuries. And one beautiful place where we find this idea expressed is in Midrash Tehillim, a collect...
The scene: The Cave of Machpelah in Hebron, the ancient burial ground purchased by Abraham himself. Jacob, also known as Israel, has passed away in Egypt, and his sons are bringing...
He needs to acquire a burial plot. And what unfolds is a fascinating negotiation, a real estate transaction steeped in cultural nuance, as recorded in Bereshit Rabbah (Genesis Rabb...
Watch how the men of Hebron address the grieving widower. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:6), the Hittite elders say to Abraham: Great before the Lord art thou among us, i...
Listen to how Ephron performs generosity. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:11), the Hittite landowner makes his first move: the field I give thee, and the cave which is in ...
The deed is recorded with the care of a surveyor. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:17), the Aramaic lists what Abraham now owns: the field, and the cave that is therein, an...
When Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac, he did not send him alone. He sent him with a promise sealed by an oath. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan sharpens the moment: the God...
Ten camels left Beersheba with a mission no caravan had ever carried before. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:10) notes something most readers breeze past: "all the goodly tre...
Rivekah had only just finished her story, gold still on her hand, when her brother Laban moved. The Torah's text is brief, but Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:30) notices the...
Some blessings are thank-you notes. This one is a map. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:48) preserves the servant's second act of worship at the fountain. "And I bowed and wor...
Rebekah sees him before he sees her. From the back of her camel she looks across the field and asks the servant, "Who is the man, so majestic and graceful, who walks in the field b...
Here is a verse that looks like an accounting entry until you notice what the numbers are doing. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:20) records that Isaac was forty years old wh...
We meet her after the death of Sarah, when Abraham – yes, that Abraham – takes her as his wife. But who was she, really? Some traditions identify her with Hagar, the mother of Ishm...
When Jacob died in Egypt and his sons carried his body back to the land of Canaan for burial, an unusual procession formed. The sons of Esau, the sons of Ishmael, and the sons of K...
As we learn in Bereshit Rabbah 60, it's a theme that runs through some pretty significant stories in our tradition. He's standing by a well, praying for a sign. "May it be," he ask...
One of the most haunting expansions in the entire Targum is this one. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:20), the Aramaic explains how Sarah died: Satana came and told unto S...
