2,729 related texts · 21 related myths · Page 2 of 57
The funeral was supposed to be solemn. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records one of the wildest scenes in all of midrash instead. "When his sons had brought him into the land of Kenaan, a...
The funeral was over. Jacob lay in the cave of Machpelah, and the family rode back to Egypt together. That should have been the end of it. But when Joseph stopped coming to the fam...
Joseph is dying. He gathers his brothers, what is left of them, around the bed and speaks words that will hover over the next four hundred years like a lamp burning in a long corri...
Some consider it pseudepigrapha – writings ascribed to biblical figures but not part of the accepted canon. Others see it as a vital window into the beliefs and practices of ancien...
Legends of the Jews turns to Jacob Tithed His Sons and Consecrated Levi for Priesthood. Tithing, in this context, wasn't just about giving a tenth of your income. It was a consecra...
Joseph, eleventh son of Jacob, beloved of Rachel, was about to die. He called his sons and brethren together and spoke. "My brethren and my children, hearken to Joseph the beloved ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 28:19) lists the third row of the breastplate: ligure, and agate, and amethyst, engraved with Gad, Asher, and Issachar. The tribes of this row...
Simeon, second son of Jacob and Leah, was dying in his hundred and twentieth year. Joseph his brother had already passed. When his sons came to visit, Simeon strengthened himself, ...
This one's from the Book of (Genesis 34:25-29), amplified and expanded in the Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg, and it's. intense. It all begins with Dinah, Jacob's daughter, ...
Legends of the Jews turns to Jacob Suspected His Sons of Lying About Joseph and Simeon. The words Jacob spoke, "Me have ye bereaved of my children," weren’t just a lament. Accordin...
We'll start with Levi. We read that he finished giving his sons his final instructions, and then, at the ripe old age of one hundred and thirty-seven – older than any of his brothe...
The patriarch Jacob certainly did. Him, nearing the end of his days, gathering his sons around him. It’s a powerful scene, fraught with love, anxiety, and a deep desire to impart w...
He gathers his sons, his legacy, around him. What does he say? What profound secrets does he reveal? In Legends of the Jews, a monumental work compiled by Rabbi Louis Ginzberg that...
His twelve sons, the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel, are gathered around him. They’re not just there to say goodbye. They're there for something more. In Targum Pseudo-...
Before Jacob's passing, he gathered his sons. But it wasn’t just a sentimental family reunion. First, he rebuked them, each individually, and then he addressed them all together. W...
The story of Dinah in Genesis 34 is already one of the most violent chapters in the Torah. The Targum Jonathan, the ancient Aramaic translation, does not soften it. Instead, it sha...
Bamidbar Rabbah 14, a fascinating exploration of the offerings brought by the princes of Israel, and how those offerings connect to Jacob, Joseph, and the tribe of Manasseh. The pa...
Bereshit Rabbah, that beautiful collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Genesis, dives deep into this very verse (Genesis 34:25) about Simeon and Levi avenging their ...
Dina, Jacob’s daughter, goes out to visit the women of the land, and is defiled by Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite. Shechem then asks his father to obtain Dina as his wife. Ja...
The Torah tells us, "Joseph saw that his father was placing his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, and it displeased him; he supported his father’s hand, to remove it from the he...
It’s a beautiful custom, wishing them the qualities we admire in these two brothers. But there's something even more interesting hidden within that blessing, something that goes ba...
The story starts with a quote from (Genesis 49:5): "Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of villainy are their heritage." But what does it really mean? Bereshit Rabbah, an ancient...
The story of Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, is a powerful illustration of just that – a tale of lost potential, impulsive actions, and the consequences that ripple through generations....
After prophesying Samson's rise, Jacob pauses. The next verse in Genesis 49 is almost a sigh. "For Thy salvation have I waited, O Lord." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan unpacks the grief an...
Joseph survived the slander, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan explains why. "He returned to abide in his early strength, and would not yield himself unto sin, and subdued his inclination...
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...
Joseph ran Egypt. He managed granaries, read dreams, survived prison, and fed a continent through seven years of famine. He knew how things were supposed to be done. So when he wat...
In the Hebrew, Issachar is called a "strong donkey bowing under its burden" (Genesis 49:14). The image sounds pastoral, a beast of fields and heavy loads. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan re...
“In the first month, that is, the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Aḥashverosh, he had cast a pur, that is, the lot, before Haman for each day and for each month, to the tw...
Jacob lived seventeen years in Egypt after reuniting with the son he had mourned as dead. Seventeen years of peace, of proximity to Joseph, of watching his family flourish in the l...
All these are the twelve tribes of Israel (Gen. 49:28). Elsewhere it is written: Twelve princes shall he beget (Gen. 17:20). These are the number of the tribes, and the world is ar...
Levi, son of Jacob and father of the Levites, did. And it all started with a dream. Two days after a particularly vivid dream, Levi and his brother Judah went to their grandfather,...
Legends of the Jews turns to Reuben Told His Children to Follow Levi and Study Torah. Well, according to Legends of the Jews, Reuben, despite his past failings, had a powerful mess...
When the Torah commands that each tribe camp under its own standard, every man by his own banner, with the ensigns of their fathers' house (Numbers 2:2), the Rabbis were curious. W...
Rabbi Hoshaya ben Levi discovered a numerical poem in an old Aggadah book. Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 285, preserves it in four lines. The Torah contains one hundred seventy-five...
The request is precise. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:9), Abraham names exactly what he wants: his double cave which is built in the side of his field, for the full pric...
The verse is simple, but the timing is everything. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:50) reports that Joseph fathered two sons "before the year of famine arose," born to Asenat...
In (Genesis 48:7), as he prepares to bless his grandsons, Jacob breaks off to explain to Joseph something that has haunted the family for decades. "Rachel died by me suddenly in th...
Jacob names the burial site with the precision of a deed. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the legal language. "In the cave that is in the Double Field over against Mamre in the la...
The ancient rabbis grappled with that very feeling when they looked at the story of Dina, Jacob’s daughter, in the Book of Genesis. The Torah tells us that Dina went out to visit t...
After journeying from Shechem to Hebron to be with their father Isaac, Jacob's sons settled in the valley. The pastures of Shechem were still good, and that’s where they tended the...
The Bible gives us glimpses, but the Book of Jasher, an ancient Hebrew text referenced in the Bible itself (Joshua 10:13, (2 Samuel 1:1)8), offers a more detailed narrative. The ch...
Joseph, after some theatrics and accusations, has now demanded they bring their youngest brother, Benjamin, back to Egypt as proof of their honesty. But getting Jacob to agree? Tha...
The weight of a vow to the Almighty, left unfulfilled. According to Legends of the Jews, as retold by Ginzberg, Jacob found himself in just such a predicament. He'd made a vow at B...
The story of Rachel's burial offers a powerful glimpse into this very idea. The Torah tells us simply that Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin and was buried on the road to Ephrat...
The Mekhilta cites Jacob's blessing to Joseph, "I have given you an additional portion over your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Emori with my sword and with my bow" (G...
It sounds impossible, doesn't it? He was embalmed, buried… but the story doesn't end there. It's said that during Jacob's funeral, some mourners thought they saw his eyes flicker o...
Jacob gathered his twelve sons around his golden bed to reveal the future. But something went wrong. According to Targum Jonathan, Jacob intended to show them "the hidden mysteries...
