510 texts in Midrash Aggadah
Here is one of the most extraordinary expansions in all of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. The biblical Hebrew says only that Moses took the rod of God in his hand. The Aramaic adds a cosm...
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 ...
On the road to Egypt, one of the strangest scenes in the Torah unfolds. The Hebrew is terse to the point of confusion: the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Targum Pseudo-Jonath...
The scene is brief, bloody, and extraordinary. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it with theological clarity: Zipporah took a stone, and circumcised the foreskin of Gershom her son,...
The resolution is as swift as the crisis. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan closes the inn scene with a verse the Hebrew almost whispers: the destroying angel desisted from him. The angel ste...
After the terror at the inn, the reunion at Sinai feels like exhale. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the geography with reverent precision: Aaron came and met him at the mountain ...
The first public assembly ends not in riot but in worship. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the triple movement: the people believed, and heard that the Lord had remembered the son...
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...
Pharaoh's reply is one of the most arrogant utterances in the entire Torah. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan makes explicit what the Hebrew only implies: The name of the Lord is not made kno...
When Pharaoh refuses, Moses and Aaron press the request with a telling clarification. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves their plea: The Name of the God of the Jehudaee is invoked by...
Pharaoh's response to the slaves' religious request is to tighten the screws. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the logic with cruel precision: the (same) number of bricks which the...
The cruelty has a chain of command. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the structure: the exactors whom Pharoh set over them as officers beat the sons of Israel, saying, Why have not...
The Israelite foremen march into Pharaoh's court and deliver one of the boldest complaints in the Torah. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders their protest with an expanded final clause:...
The foremen walk out of Pharaoh's court knowing they have lost. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the grim recognition: the foremen of the sons of Israel saw that they were in evil,...
When the foremen finally confront Moses and Aaron, their rage is spectacular. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the accusation: Our affliction is manifest before the Lord, but our p...
The answer to the foremen's despair comes from the Holy One, not from Moses. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the divine reassurance: Now have I seen what Pharoh hath done: for by ...
The Holy One explains something astonishing to Moses. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the distinction between the revelations: I was revealed unto Abraham, and to Izhak, and to Ja...
God outlines the Exodus in a sequence of verbs that the sages will later count as the Arba Leshonot Shel Geulah — the Four Expressions of Redemption. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserv...
The fifth and deepest verb of redemption arrives in the next verse. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it with covenantal precision: I will bring you nigh before Me to be a people, a...
The Exodus closes the loop that began with Abraham. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the full covenantal claim: I will bring you into the land which I covenanted by My Word to give...
Moses returns to the slaves with the five expressions of redemption — and they do not hear him. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the heartbreak: Mosheh spake according to this to t...
After the slaves refuse to hear him, Moses turns to God with a new version of his old protest. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the logic: Behold, the sons of Israel do not hearken...
The Holy One does not argue with Moses. He simply issues a new set of orders. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the dual commission: the Lord spake with Mosheh and with Aharon, and ...
In the middle of the Exodus narrative, the Torah pauses for a genealogy. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it with the ceremonial weight of a formal record: These are the heads of t...
The Torah lists Shimeon's sons with a single odd note about the last one: Shaul, born of a Canaanite woman (Exodus 6:15). The Aramaic paraphrase of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodu...
The Torah gives Levi's lifespan as a hundred and thirty-seven years (Exodus 6:16), but Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a single clause that changes the entire feel of the verse. Levi, ...
Among the quietest bombshells in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is a single line tucked into a genealogy. Kehath, son of Levi, lived a hundred and thirty-three years, and, the Targum adds,...
The plain verse says only that Amram married Jokeved, fathered Aharon and Moses, and lived a hundred and thirty-seven years (Exodus 6:20). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 6:20) a...
The Torah says Elazar son of Aharon married a daughter of Putiel, and she bore Phinehas (Exodus 6:25). Who is this Putiel that the Torah mentions nowhere else? Targum Pseudo-Jonath...
When the Torah sums up who stood before Pharaoh to demand Israel's release, it simply says these are they (Exodus 6:27). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 6:27) supplies the titles...
The plain verse says God made Moses as a god to Pharaoh (Exodus 7:1). The phrase has rattled translators for two thousand years. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:1) handles ...
God tells Moses that Pharaoh will not listen, but that redemption will come anyway — by force. The Hebrew says God will lay His hand upon Egypt (Exodus 7:4). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan...
When Pharaoh demanded a sign, Aharon was to throw down his rod and watch it become a serpent. But Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:9) translates the Hebrew tannin with the word ...
The moment arrives. Moses and Aharon enter Pharaoh's court, and Aharon throws down the rod. The Torah says it became a tannin, usually translated serpent or sea-monster (Exodus 7:1...
The Egyptian magicians threw down their rods too, and theirs also became serpents. So far, a tie. But Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:12) adds a detail the Hebrew only hints at...
Why did Moses have to meet Pharaoh by the water at sunrise? The plain text only says that Pharaoh went out to the river (Exodus 7:15). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:15) tells...
When Moses delivers the demand at the Nile, the Hebrew has him speak in the name of the God of the Hebrews (Exodus 7:16). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:16) updates the phrase...
Moses stands at the water with the rod lifted, and God's words are simple and total: By this sign thou shalt know that I am the Lord (Exodus 7:17). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodu...
The first plague is about to reach past the river itself. God tells Aharon to stretch the rod over rivers, trenches, canals, and every place for collecting their waters (Exodus 8:1...
The order was given; now it is done. Aharon lifts the rod, strikes the Nile in full view of Pharaoh and his court, and the whole river turns (Exodus 7:20). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan o...
The plague has a smell. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:21) stays close to the Hebrew, but what it describes is the sensory aftermath of a cosmic blow. The fish that were in th...
The first plague had fallen, but Egypt's astrologers refused to concede. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:22) gives a detail most translations flatten: So also did the astrologe...
The second plague is announced with an almost comic precision. Frogs will not merely swarm; they will specify. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:28) lists the destinations: into ...
God commands Aharon to lift his rod and bring up the frogs upon the land of Mizraim (Exodus 8:1). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:1) echoes the Hebrew faithfully but it is the ...
Here is one of the most tender footnotes in all of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. Aharon lifts his hand, the frogs swarm up. And the meturgeman pauses to explain why it is Aharon, not Mos...
The frogs finally break him. For the first time, Pharaoh sends for Moses and Aharon and asks them to pray. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:4) preserves his exact bargaining pos...
Pharaoh has begged. Now Moses gives him an extraordinary gift: pick the hour. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:5) renders the offer with unmistakable dignity to Pharaoh's office...
Moses's promise is exact and generous. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:7): The frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy house, and from thy servants, and from thy people; and...
