2,273 related texts · Page 14 of 48
It all started with a walk by the river. Pharaoh, had a little… problem. He fancied himself a god. Not just any god, mind you, but the god of Egypt. The problem? Gods aren't suppos...
Jewish tradition wrestles with these questions constantly, and the story of the Exodus is a prime example. : Pharaoh. He was the mastermind behind the oppression of the Israelites....
Moses, the man who stood toe-to-toe with Pharaoh, the man who witnessed unimaginable plagues unleashed upon Egypt, still maintained a certain level of deference. It's almost counte...
It wasn't just about packing bags and sneaking away in the night. It was a direct confrontation with the gods of Egypt. For generations, they had lived under the yoke of the Pharao...
We're talking about the night of the slaying of the firstborn, the tenth plague that finally broke his iron grip on the Israelites. According to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of ...
After all those plagues, after unimaginable suffering, the Egyptians were done. They weren't just letting the Israelites go; they were practically shoving them out the door! Can yo...
We all know the story of the Exodus, the parting of the Red Sea, the dramatic escape from slavery. But what about the Egyptians left behind? It wasn't just a simple case of "poof, ...
We all know the basic story: the Israelites escape, the Egyptians pursue, and then… whoosh! Disaster. But the ancient texts give us so much more detail, painting a truly epic pictu...
We all know the story: the Israelites are freed, the waters part, the Egyptians pursue, the waters crash. End of story. Well, not quite. According to the Legends of the Jews, a mon...
We know the biblical account, but what about the legends, the stories whispered in hushed tones across generations? Well, according to those whispers, Pharaoh never truly died. Ima...
The Israelites, fresh from their miraculous escape from Egypt, faced just such a dilemma. Imagine the scene: the Red Sea has just crashed back down, swallowing Pharaoh's army whole...
The sages certainly thought so. Let's consider Simeon, for instance. Just as Reuben stepped in to save Joseph's life, Simeon rose up to avenge his sister Dinah after the terrible e...
It’s a tangled web of texts, traditions, and sometimes, well, good old-fashioned arguments. Imagine trying to prove your nation’s antiquity. How would you do it? The historian Jose...
Most people, as Josephus points out in his treatise Against Apion, are pretty clueless about their own legal systems. They bumble along, accidentally break a rule, and only then do...
Twenty pounds of silver. That was the price of a human life—the amount Joseph's own brothers accepted from a passing caravan of Ishmaelite merchants in exchange for their seventeen...
The Egyptian princess who raised Moses had to make him swear an oath before handing him over to the king. That is how little she trusted her own father's court—the same court whose...
God declared His secret name to Moses at the burning bush—and then Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, refused to write it down. "It is not lawful for me to say any more,...
to a passage from Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar 73. The Tikkunei Zohar, a companion volume to the Zohar, is a deep, often esoteric exploration of the Torah, using symbolism and...
The tenth plague killed every firstborn in Egypt. But the Mekhilta asks a question that pushes the scope of the devastation further than most readers imagine: what about the firstb...
"from the first-born of Pharaoh sitting on his throne": Scripture hereby apprises us that Pharaoh (himself) was a first-born, (the throne passing in succession to the first-born). ...
"This day you go out in the month of Aviv" (Exodus 13:3) — a verse that seems to state the obvious. Of course Israel left in the month of Aviv (spring). The Torah already told us t...
The Mekhilta offers a second interpretation of the phrase "and Pharaoh pressed ahead," this time focusing on the terrifying speed of the Egyptian pursuit. Pharaoh did not merely ch...
As Israel stood at the edge of the sea, they looked back and saw something terrifying. "And, behold, Egypt coming after them" (Exodus 14:10). The Mekhilta notices a grammatical det...
Rabbi Yossi HaGlili presents one of the most famous calculations in rabbinic literature. He asks: how do we know that the Egyptians were struck with ten plagues in Egypt and fifty ...
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-...
(Exodus 15:4) "the chariots of Pharaoh and his host": "As one measures, so is it meted out to him." They (the Egyptians [i.e., Pharaoh]) said (Ibid. 5:2) "Who is the L–rd that I sh...
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...
The Song at the Sea praises God not only for His power but for His patience. The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael highlights a detail that the Israelites themselves recognized as they san...
The Egyptian army was not unified in its cruelty. According to the Mekhilta, the Egyptians at the Red Sea divided into three factions, each with a different plan for what to do wit...
The Egyptians drowned at the Red Sea — but they also received burial. The Mekhilta asks the obvious question: in what merit were the Egyptians granted burial? They had enslaved Isr...
Rabbi Elazar Hamodai offered a surprising claim about what life was actually like for the Israelites in Egypt. Contrary to what one might expect from a nation of slaves, Israel liv...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael pauses on a single phrase from the Ten Commandments to ask a question about dignity. When God declared "who took you out from the land of Egypt," what...
Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), that beautiful, expansive form of Jewish storytelling, loves to shine a light on those very people. It teases out their virtues, amplifi...
We all know the story: Moses, the Israelites, the desperate flight from Egypt... But the details? Oh, the Rabbis have some thoughts. The book of Psalms (Tehillim) is a constant sou...
The ancient text Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a collection of stories and interpretations of the Hebrew Bible, gives us a glimpse into just such a moment. Specifically, it focuses on Ab...
That’s definitely not a new phenomenon. to a story from Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 38, a text filled with midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary)ic interpretations and expansions of...
The story begins with Moses, standing before God, asking for a sign, a mofet, to prove his divine mission. "Sovereign of all worlds!" he pleads, "Give me a wonder or a sign!" And G...
That's exactly where the Israelites found themselves, cornered at the edge of the Yam Suf, the Reed Sea. Rabban Gamaliel, in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 42, paints a vivid picture of th...
We're going to look at a passage from Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, specifically chapter 42. This work, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, is a beautiful, almost dreamlike, retelling of biblical na...
The Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating and often poetic work of Midrash (Jewish Biblical exegesis), gives us a glimpse into the hearts and minds of the Israelites at that pivota...
It paints a picture of a young Moses deeply connected to his people, even while living in Pharaoh's palace. The text tells us that everyone in Pharaoh's household was involved in M...
The Jewish tradition grapples with these questions constantly, and sometimes the answers are found in the most unexpected places. Today, we're diving into a fascinating passage fro...
Sifrei Devarim 333, in a rather striking interpretation, suggests that all the punishments in Egypt are "pinned on Pharaoh's head" because he was the first to subjugate Israel. It ...
It seems like a simple question, but the answer, like so many things in Jewish tradition, is layered with meaning. The Sifrei Devarim, an ancient commentary on the Book of Deuteron...
The Hebrew Bible calls Hagar a "maidservant." The Targum Jonathan, an ancient Aramaic translation of the Torah composed in the land of Israel, calls her a daughter of Pharaoh. That...
The story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife in Genesis 39 is already tense. The Targum Jonathan ratchets the tension higher by adding theological motives, divine intervention, and a tr...
The reveal scene in Genesis 45—Joseph breaking down and declaring "I am Joseph"—is already one of the most dramatic moments in the Torah. Targum Jonathan transforms it into a proph...
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...
