13,506 related texts · 43 related myths · Page 4 of 282
When God promised Abraham a great reward, Abraham's answer was not gratitude. It was an honest complaint. Gifts without children are not quite gifts. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Gen...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 15:14) promises judgment on the nation whom they shall serve. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives the judgment a number that has startled readers for centuries. Two...
Thirteen years pass between chapters. When the Lord returns to Abraham, He speaks a name He has not yet used in Genesis. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 17:1) keeps it in its or...
When the Lord frames the covenant in (Genesis 17:7), Targum Pseudo-Jonathan slips in one of its most telling technical terms. The covenant is established between My Word and thee. ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 17:17) is the mirror image of Sarah's later laugh at the tent door. Abraham falls on his face. He does not argue out loud. He laughs, wondered, t...
Chapter 18 of Genesis opens with one of the most intimate moments in the Torah, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives it a medical detail the Hebrew leaves implicit. The glory of the Lo...
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...
Where was Isaac during all this? The Torah says he was "coming from Beer-lahai-roi." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:62) tells us something far more specific. He was coming f...
One of the great numerical puzzles of the Torah is solved openly by Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:40). The Hebrew says Israel lived in Mizraim for four hundred thirty years....
Three days after his circumcision at age ninety-nine, Abraham sat in pain at the entrance of his tent. (Genesis 18:1-2) describes what happened next in language so compressed it hi...
It's a feeling that pops up in some pretty surprising places, even in our sacred stories. to one of those moments, found in the Book of Jubilees. It's considered apocryphal by some...
Book of Jubilees turns to Abraham Torn Between Sarah and Hagar. It all centers around Sarah, Abraham’s beloved wife, and Hagar, her handmaid. Sarah, in her older years, had been un...
That feeling echoes through the ages, all the way back to the time of the Maccabees. And it’s where our story begins. These aren’t my words,. This is straight from The Second Book ...
After Abram's bold declaration against idol worship (in the previous chapter), King Nimrod isn't too pleased. According to the Book of Jasher, Nimrod had Abram thrown into prison f...
One of those: a chapter from the Book of Jasher. The Book of Jasher isn't part of the Tanakh. Its authenticity and origins are disputed by scholars. But it's a fascinating text non...
When the people of Babylon decided to build a tower reaching heaven, everyone had to make bricks. Everyone had to write their name on their brick. But twelve men refused. According...
Haran, the eldest son of Terah, made his living selling his father's idols to the Chaldeans. His younger brother Abraham refused to worship them. When the Chaldeans came to test bo...
The story of Abraham, or Avraham in Hebrew, is a powerful exploration of just that. The ancient texts tell us that Abraham faced ten trials, each designed to test the depths of his...
It wasn't just a simple "Okay, God, I'll go." According to the Legends of the Jews, as retold by Ginzberg, Moses' agreement came with conditions. He wanted assurances that his requ...
The ancient texts tell us that after the dust settled from the battles described earlier in Legends of the Jews, Abraham was deeply troubled. He couldn't shake the thought of the i...
Sometimes, the stories behind them are even more incredible than the rituals themselves. Let's The Legends of the Jews tells us that Abraham’s circumcision wasn't just a personal a...
Ishmael’s story doesn't simply vanish; it continues, filled with hardship, growth, and a surprising encounter with his father. In Ginzberg's, Legends of the Jews, Ishmael's wife bo...
That feeling… it's a heavy one. And it's something Judah, one of Jacob's sons, knew all too well. See, Jacob was utterly devastated by the supposed death of his beloved son, Joseph...
Sarah laughed when the angels told her she would bear a son. She was ninety years old. Abraham was a hundred. The idea was absurd. And yet Isaac was born, and his very name, Yitzch...
Heikhalot Rabbati turns to Rabbi Ishmael's Day of Dread When Rome Seized Four Sages. Rabbi Ishmael, a central figure in this tradition, recounts a day of utter dread. "That day was...
The Torah records a remarkable exchange in (Genesis 10:15): "And Canaan begot Tziddon, his first-born, and Cheth." Generations later, the sons of Cheth, the Hittites, encountered A...
The Torah closes its account of Ishmael's line with a map. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:18) names the borders: "they dwelt from Hindiki unto Chalutsa, which is in face of ...
It's one of those biblical tales that's just packed with odd details, and the Rabbis of the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) had a field day unpacking it all. We find a f...
Bereshit Rabbah turns to The Three Altars Abraham Built in the Promised Land. Why three? Well, each altar served a specific purpose, a distinct expression of gratitude and foresigh...
It all starts with God promising Abraham countless descendants: "Look now to the heavens, and count the stars, if you can count them… So will your offspring be." But it's the phras...
It says, "Abram was ninety-nine years old, and the Lord appeared to Abram; He said to him: I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be faultless.” Ninety-nine years old. It’s never t...
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." The familiar version gives us the famous line from Ecclesiastes (3:1). But have you ever stopped to c...
Bereshit Rabbah turns to Covenant of Circumcision of Abraham. (Genesis 17:26) tells us, “On that very day, Abraham was circumcised, and Ishmael his son.” Simple. But that “very day...
I've been pondering just that as I was reading through Bereshit Rabbah, specifically section 48, which elaborates on a seemingly simple verse: (Genesis 18:6). It reads, "Abraham hu...
Bereshit Rabbah turns to The Young Bull Abraham Gave Ishmael to Prepare. Remember when three divine guests show up at Abraham's tent in the heat of the day (Genesis 18)? He springs...
The story begins with Abraham making a covenant with Avimelekh, a Philistine king. As (Genesis 21:27) tells us, "Abraham took flocks and cattle, and gave them to Avimelekh, and the...
The Bible tells us the bare bones of the story, but the Rabbis, in their endless quest to understand God's word, delve deeper, seeking hidden meanings and profound truths. In Beres...
Bereshit Rabbah turns to Ishmael and Creation of Abraham. "Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Makhpela, in the field of Efron, son of Tzohar the Hittite, that is ...
What it means to truly come "home?" The Torah touches on this very human longing as Jacob, nearing the end of his life, makes a heartfelt request of his son, Joseph. "The time for ...
The verse in (Genesis 50:3) tells us, "Forty days were completed for him, as so are the days of embalming completed. Egypt wept for him for seventy days.” Then, just a verse later,...
After all, it's not exactly a flattering name given Canaan's, shall we say, complicated backstory. Vayikra Rabbah, a fascinating collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Lev...
In Vayikra Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Leviticus, we find a powerful exploration of this idea. It all starts with a seemingly simple verse: "You shall...
Vayikra Rabbah turns to Israelite Women Guarded Their Virtue in Egypt. Rabbi Pinchas offers an interpretation: "A locked fountain – these are the virgins. A locked garden – these a...
It's a metaphor, a living, breathing symbol of the Jewish people themselves. We find this beautiful idea elaborated on in Vayikra Rabbah 36, a section of the Midrash (rabbinic inte...
It’s more profound than it first appears. (Genesis 12:5) tells us, “Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot, son of his brother, and all their property that they had acquired, and the p...
Jacob said: "My way is hidden from the Lord, and my justice has passed away from my God" (Isaiah 40:27). This was Israel speaking, the whole nation's complaint condensed into one v...
Before Abraham was a patriarch he was a shopkeeper's son. His father Terach sold idols in Ur, and Abraham, still a boy, worked behind the counter. The customers came in believing t...
The verse in (Genesis 14:8) simply lists who showed up for the battle. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot let a list stay a list. It glosses Bela once more as the city which consumed it...
