1,400 related texts · Page 23 of 30
The opening verse of Deuteronomy lists a string of place names — "in the wilderness, in the Arabah, over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Di-zah...
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 ...
The standard book of Exodus says an angel appeared to Moses in the burning bush. The Targum Jonathan, an ancient Aramaic translation composed in the land of Israel, names that ange...
When Moses and Aaron first confronted Pharaoh and demanded he release Israel, the Hebrew Bible records Pharaoh's defiant reply: "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?" (Ex...
The Targum Jonathan on Exodus 8 contains one of the most remarkable theological additions in all of ancient Aramaic literature: the reason Moses personally refused to bring the pla...
The standard Exodus text says God promised one final plague against Egypt. The Targum Jonathan transforms this announcement into something far more personal and humiliating for Pha...
The Targum Jonathan on (Exodus 13) contains one of the most startling cross-references in all of ancient Aramaic translation. It identifies the famous dry bones from (Ezekiel 37) a...
The Song of the Sea in (Exodus 15) is one of the oldest poems in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan rewrites it with additions so bold they create entirely new theology, includi...
Amalek's attack on Israel at Rephidim is only a few verses in (Exodus 17). The Targum Jonathan expands it into an epic confrontation with backstory, supernatural geography, and a w...
The instructions for building the Tabernacle in (Exodus 25) read like an architectural blueprint in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan adds theological meaning to nearly every m...
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 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 standard census in the Book of Numbers is a dry headcount. But the Targum Jonathan transforms it into something far more dramatic, adding a theological reason for every exempti...
In the standard Hebrew text, God takes the Levites instead of Israel's firstborn sons. The Targum Jonathan adds details that transform this administrative swap into a high-stakes t...
Numbers 11 tells the story of Israel complaining about food in the wilderness. The Targum Jonathan adds a graven image in the camp of Dan, a wind that nearly destroyed the world, a...
Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses. The Hebrew Bible is vague about why. The Targum Jonathan fills in the backstory with a Cushite queen, a celibate prophet, and a divine rebuke tha...
The Hebrew Bible says Moses sent twelve spies into Canaan. The Targum Jonathan says he sent "keen-sighted men"—then reveals how spectacularly their vision failed them. Moses dispat...
Korah did not just challenge Moses. According to the Targum Jonathan, he manufactured a theological argument using the very fabric of his clothing, hid treasure he had looted from ...
After the plague killed twenty-four thousand, God ordered a new census. The Targum's version of (Numbers 26) opens with a phrase absent from the Torah: "the compassions of the heav...
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 Targ...
The standard text of (Deuteronomy 1) opens with Moses speaking to Israel "beyond the Jordan." But the Targum Jonathan, an ancient Aramaic translation composed between the 1st and 4...
The Targum Jonathan on (Deuteronomy 4) transforms the Sinai revelation into something far more vivid than the Hebrew original. Where the Bible says God spoke from the fire, the Tar...
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 ...
When God gave the Torah at Sinai, the Israelites did not simply accept it freely. According to Shabbat 88a, Rabbi Avdimi bar Hama bar Hasa taught that God uprooted Mount Sinai and ...
The rabbis once overruled God—and God laughed. According to Bava Metzia 59b, the incident began with an argument about an oven. Rabbi Eliezer declared a certain oven ritually pure....
The Hebrew Bible says Moses came to "the mountain of God" at Horeb (Exodus 3:1). Targum Onkelos specifies: "the mountain on which the Glory of God was revealed." The mountain is no...
The Hebrew Bible says God told Moses, "Who gave man a mouth, or who makes a person dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I—God?" (Exodus 4:11). Targum Onkelos translates this ve...
"I am God, your Lord, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (Exodus 20:2). Targum Onkelos translates the Ten Commandments with almost no deviation from the Hebrew—a remarkable ...
The Hebrew Bible says Moses, Aaron, Nadav, Avihu, and seventy elders "saw the God of Israel" (Exodus 24:10). This is an extraordinary claim—direct visual perception of the divine. ...
The Hebrew Bible records Moses making the most audacious request in Scripture: "Show me Your glory" (Exodus 33:18). Targum Onkelos renders the response with his most careful theolo...
The Hebrew Bible calls Moses "the man of God" (Deuteronomy 33:1). Targum Onkelos adds one word: "the prophet of God." Moses is not merely a man who belongs to God. He is a prophet—...
The Hebrew Bible says Moses died "by the mouth of God" (Deuteronomy 34:5). Ancient tradition interprets this as death by a divine kiss—the gentlest possible departure from life. Ta...
... Another reading: “Comfort, oh comfort My people” (Isaiah 40:1) Said the Holy Blessed One: Who needs to be comforted? For one whose wife died, not the husband? Thus was Zion ana...
Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Chacham HaRazim" (The Sage of Secrets): A Midrash regarding angels and gematria (Jewish numerology). According to Stein Schneider, this i...
These are the ten questions that Rabbi Eliezer asked regarding the resurrection of the dead: The first one is - will God resurrect some of Israel or all of them? The answer is that...
"Until the end of the first watch," said R. Eliezer. Let us see: with whom does R. Eliezer agree? If he hold that the night is divided into three watches, then let him say "until t...
The story of Kamsa and bar Kam§a and the fall of Jerusalem. A man had company and had invited Bar Kamsa who was his enemy, by mistake. He afterwards turned him out in spite of his ...
13. Rabbi Meir once left synagogue earlier than usual. Wonder at the reason. He had overheard a snake saying, “I am sent to kill R. Judah the Antoti and his whole family because ha...
VIII. God decreed that Solomon should be punished for transgressing three laws. Ashmedai, after the building of the temple, told Solomon that he would show him some wonderful thing...
King David once asked God what good there was in gnats, spiders and fools. One day, fleeing from Saul, he hid in a cave and a spider quickly covered the opening with its web. Saul,...
A rich man, having confidence in his son gave him all his property in his lifetime. After a while the son commenced to neglect his father, ill-treating him and sending him away to ...
When Moses and Aaron walked into Pharaoh's palace to demand the release of the Israelite slaves, they were not entering a building. They were entering a fortress designed to intimi...
Gog makes his plans in secret. He thinks his strategies are hidden — the alliance-building, the schemes against Israel, the invasions planned in quiet rooms. "On that day, thoughts...
God told Noah to enter the ark, and then, after the flood, He told him to leave it. "Go out from the ark" (Genesis 8:16). A simple command — except the rabbis hear in it a whole th...
Each prophet saw God differently. Amos saw Him standing — "I saw the Lord standing beside the altar" (Amos 9:1). Isaiah saw Him sitting — "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high ...
Why does the world hold together? Jeremiah gives the unlikely answer: "If not for My covenant day and night, I would not have established the fixed order of heaven and earth" (Jere...
Hell has seven names. This is what Aggadat Bereshit says when Malachi promises "the day is coming, burning like an oven" (Malachi 3:19). The rabbis did not flinch from the geograph...
Hannah was barren for years. Her husband loved her and her rival taunted her and the priest Eli misread her prayer as drunkenness. The whole story is about a woman whose deepest lo...
