4,138 related texts · 13 related myths · Page 4 of 87
See, I have set thee in God’s stead to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet (Exod. 7:1). Just as the lecturer sits and lectures, and the interpreter explains his wor...
While God was still speaking, Abraham suddenly found himself back upon the earth. "O Eternal, Mighty One," he said, "I am no longer in the glory in which I was while on high, and w...
This is the weight of the story It begins with a warning, a plea really. "Therefore let these words of mine which I am about to speak find entrance into thy heart.." It’s a serious...
Sounds daunting. Now, That’s precisely the situation Moses found himself in. As Ginzberg recounts in Legends of the Jews, Moses actually argued with God! He essentially said, "I'm ...
Before the seventh plague falls, the Lord gives an instruction that reveals His character. "Now send, gather together thy flocks, and all that thou hast in the field," the warning ...
The scene: Pharaoh, terrified by the growing Israelite population, issues a horrifying command to the Hebrew midwives. "When you deliver the Hebrew women," he says, "and you see th...
In the story of the Exodus, a staff becomes a symbol of divine power, a tool for liberation, and, surprisingly, a way to deal with really stubborn people. The book of Shemot Rabbah...
The familiar reading treats the verse in (Exodus 12:30), "As there was no house in which there was no one dead," and maybe we don't fully grasp its implications. But the ancient ra...
After Pharaoh's daughter discovered the infant Moses nestled among the bulrushes, she brought him back to the palace. She presented him to her father, claiming that the Nile itself...
The familiar story is this: God sends these devastating plagues upon Egypt until Pharaoh finally relents and lets the Israelites go. But there's so much more to it than just a simp...
It wasn't just a quick anointing, you see. It was an entire week of living in the shadow of the Tabernacle, a period of seclusion from the everyday world, a real immersion into hol...
It’s a story filled with faith, doubt, and the heavy burden of leadership. Our tale picks up with the Israelites, once again, thirsty and grumbling. Moses, ever the faithful servan...
The Mekhilta poses a question about the hierarchy of respect: how much honor should a person show to a friend? The answer comes from one of the most revealing moments between Moses...
The plague of frogs rose out of the Nile, and the sages wondered: how does a single verse describe it in the singular? And the frog came up and covered the land of Egypt (Exodus 8:...
A strange episode is preserved in the Talmud: a witch once transformed a man into an ass. He found himself in the marketplace on four legs, mounted like any beast of burden. One of...
The princess opens the basket. She does not find a quiet, sleeping infant. She finds a crying baby. "And she opened, and saw the child, and, behold, the babe wept; and she had comp...
Here is a difficult teaching: the Holy One tells Moses the outcome before the negotiation begins. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan puts it with unsettling clarity: it is manifest before Me t...
The confrontation finally arrives. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the opening line with ceremonial weight: Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Release My people, that they ma...
When Moses raised his rod, heaven answered with a miracle that defied nature itself. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:23) describes it: "Mosheh lifted up his rod toward the ...
Moses and Aaron walked out of the palace, past the gates, into the suburb of the city. And there, in the open, Moses did exactly what he had promised. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on...
By the eighth plague, the Torah's language has shifted. Before, it was Pharaoh who hardened his own heart. Now, the Lord takes a share of the responsibility. "The Lord spake to Mos...
Pharaoh's patience finally breaks. "Pharoh said to him, Go from me. Beware that thou add not to see my face to speak before me one of these words that are so hard: for in the day t...
And Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel (Exod. 4:29). He told them: The Holy One, blessed be He, has said: I have surely remembered ...
Book of Jubilees turns to Moses and Joseph of Mast. It all revolves around the Prince of the Mastêmâ. Who is he? The text doesn't explicitly say, but the context strongly suggests ...
Book of Jasher turns to Joseph's Legacy of Pharaoh. The story opens with a looming crisis: a famine. "In those days, after the death of Isaac, the Lord commanded and caused a famin...
There are so many fascinating texts that offer different perspectives and details on familiar narratives. a chapter from one of these books: the Book of Jasher. Specifically, we'll...
The frogs were gone. Vanished! You'd think he'd be thanking his lucky stars. You'd think he’d be packing up the Israelites and sending them on their way with a "Godspeed!" But nope...
The Torah itself describes the plague of boils in stark terms (Exodus 9:8-12). But the Legends of the Jews, that magnificent collection of rabbinic lore compiled by Louis Ginzberg,...
The ancient stories wrestle with these questions, too. Take the story of Pharaoh and the plagues in Egypt. The familiar story is this: Moses demands freedom for the Israelites, Pha...
Our ancestors did the very same thing, as we learn from the story of Moses and the water from the rock. The scene: The Israelites are wandering in the desert, thirsty, desperate. T...
Six hundred chariots. Fifty thousand horsemen. Two hundred thousand infantry. That was the army Pharaoh sent racing after the Hebrews barely three days after letting them go. And h...
After Moses grasps the serpent by the tail and it becomes a rod, the Holy One explains the purpose of the miracle. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan puts it plainly: In order that they may be...
On the road to Egypt, the Holy One issues a warning that has troubled readers for two millennia. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan softens the Hebrew's I will harden his heart into something ...
There's a deeply considered, almost… merciful… method to the madness. The Book of Exodus (7:16-17) sets the stage: "You shall say to him: The Lord, God of the Hebrews, has sent me ...
In the Book of Exodus, we read, "The Lord said to Moses: Say to Aaron: Extend your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals, and over the pools, and cause frogs to asc...
Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning; lo, he goeth out unto the water (Exod. 7:14). Thus the Lord said: Through this (water) you shall cause him to know that I am the Lord. I will ...
The familiar version gives us the broad strokes: Pharaoh, Moses, plagues, freedom. But the details… oh, the details are where things get truly wild. The Torah recounts the ten plag...
"Go forth and gaze, daughters of Zion, upon King Solomon" (Song of Songs 3:11). The sages of Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:3 read that word tziyyon as m'tzuyanim, the distinguished ones,...
The final verse of our batch is devastating because it describes a man who investigates the truth and then rejects it. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:7): And Pharoh sent certa...
It is one of the hardest verses in Exodus. Why didn't the Lord simply strike Pharaoh dead and free the slaves? The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:16), the Aramaic paraphrase p...
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 Isra...
“The king’s scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and it was written in accordance with everything that Haman had commanded the king’s satraps, and the go...
He is the ultimate power in Egypt, and he is absolutely convinced of his own divinity. So, when Moses and Aaron come to him with their message – "Let my people go, that they may se...
The familiar version gives us about Aaron's rod turning into a serpent. But the why behind that miracle is According to Legends of the Jews, that amazing collection of rabbinic sto...
Pharaoh, utterly unmoved by Moses and Aaron's plea to let the people go, didn't just say no. He doubled down. On the very day of that fateful audience, he issued a decree. The Isra...
Aaron, acting on divine command, stretched out his hand, and bam! Every drop of water in Egypt transformed into blood. Not just the Nile, not just the rivers and streams, but even ...
You've got the Red Sea in front of you, Pharaoh's army closing in behind, and the unforgiving desert on either side. Desperate doesn’t even begin to cover it. As Ginzberg retells i...
The Torah tells us that Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, the sacred law, from God. Before he left, Moses told the people he would return in forty days with the divi...
