510 texts in Midrash Aggadah
The third plague is lice — venomous insects that emerge from the dust. Again Aharon must wield the rod, not Moses. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:12) gives the breathtaking re...
Aharon strikes the dust and every grain of it becomes a biting insect. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:13) is emphatic: all the dust of the earth was changed to become insects,...
The Egyptian astrologers had matched the first two plagues. Blood — yes. Frogs — yes. Lice — no. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:14) is blunt: The astrologers wrought with thei...
The astrologers finally crack. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:15) records their confession: This is not by the power or strength of Mosheh and Aharon; but this is a plague sen...
Before the fourth plague, God sends Moses back to the water. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:16) restages the old dawn scene: Arise in the morning, and stand before Pharoh: beh...
The fourth plague is introduced with a vividness the Hebrew keeps restrained. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:17) translates the arov — the mixed swarm — as a mixed multitude o...
With the fourth plague, God introduces a distinction that will repeat for the remaining plagues: that day in the land of Goshen where My people dwell, there no swarms of wild beast...
The plague arrives as promised. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:20) is terse and terrifying: the Lord did so; and sent the mixed multitude of wild beasts in strength to the hou...
Pharaoh offers a compromise. Bring your sacrifices inside the land. Don't go anywhere. Moses's answer, as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:22) renders it, is a lesson in cultura...
Pressure is working. Pharaoh concedes — partially. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:24) records the half-surrender: I will release you to sacrifice before the Lord your God in t...
Moses accepts the deal — warily. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:25) preserves the careful language: I will go forth from thee, and pray before the Lord to remove the swarm of ...
The prayer works. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:27) delivers the outcome with plain satisfaction: the Lord did according to the word of the prayer of Mosheh, and removed the ...
Plague five begins with the same message that opened the demands at the Nile. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:1): Thus saith the Lord, the God of the Jehudaee, Emancipate My pe...
The fifth plague is livestock pestilence, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:3) renders it with memorable Aramaic precision: the stroke of the Lord's hand shall be as it hath ...
The distinction is now locked in. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:4): the Lord will work wonders between the flocks of Israel and the flocks of the Mizraee, that not any of tho...
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...
Before the sixth plague breaks on Egypt, the Holy One gives Moses and Aaron a strange instruction. Not a rod to raise. Not a river to strike. Handfuls of fine ash from the kiln. "T...
It happened exactly as the Lord said. Moses and Aaron took the furnace ash in their hands, walked out to meet Pharaoh, and Moses flung the ash skyward. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan r...
Every earlier plague, Pharaoh's court magicians had something to say. They turned their rods to serpents. They conjured frogs. They strained against lice and failed. But when the s...
After the boils, the Lord does not relent. He sends Moses back to the palace, and the command has not changed. "Arise in the morning, and place thyself before Pharoh, and say to hi...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:14) preserves a warning that cuts through every illusion Pharaoh ever held. "At this time I will send upon thee a plague from the heavens," ...
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 Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:18), the Aramaic paraphrase long attributed to Yonatan ben Uzziel, does something the plain Hebrew text does not. It names the source of the...
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 ...
"Uplift thy hand towards the height of the heavens," the Lord says to Moses (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:2)2), "and there shall be hail on all the land of Mizraim, upon men...
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 ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:24) reaches for superlatives: "There was hail, and fire darting among the hail with exceeding force: unto it had never been the like in all ...
The hail did not simply fall. It worked. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:25), the Aramaic paraphrase preserved in the tradition of Yonatan ben Uzziel, records the damage wi...
Mid-storm, with hail hammering the roof of the palace and fire leaping through the ice, Pharaoh finally says the words. "He said to them, This time I have sinned. I know that the L...
Confession is easy when the sky is falling on you. "Intercede before the Lord," Pharaoh pleads to Moses, "that with Him it may be enough, and there may be no more maledictory thund...
Moses does not pray inside Pharaoh's palace. He does not pray inside the city at all. "When I have gone out from thee into the city," he tells the king, "I will outspread my hands ...
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...
The sky cleared. And Pharaoh immediately went back on his word. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:34), the Aramaic paraphrase preserved in the tradition of Yonatan ben Uzziel...
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...
The plagues are not only punishment. They are curriculum. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 10:2) records the Holy One's own reason: "In the hearing of thy sons and of thy chil...
"Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel," Moses and Aaron declare, "How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before Me? Let My people go, that they may worship before Me" (Targu...
The warning for the eighth plague is as graphic as anything the Torah has yet described. "They shall cover the face of the ground," the Lord tells Moses through the Targum Pseudo-J...
"They shall fill thy house, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of the Mizraee," the Lord declares through Moses, "(the like of) which neither thy fathers nor thy fo...
It is a remarkable moment. After eight plagues, the ones who crack first are not Pharaoh — but his own courtiers. "The servants of Pharoh said, How long shall this man be a stumbli...
When Pharaoh asks who will be going to worship, Moses answers without hesitation. "With our children and with our old men will we go; with our sons and with our daughters we will g...
Pharaoh responds with a sarcasm that reveals his actual intention. "He said to them, So may the Word of the Lord be a help to you: (but) how can I release (both) you and your child...
"(It shall be) not so as ye devise; but the men only shall go and worship before the Lord; for that it was which ye demanded. And he drave them out from before the face of Pharoh" ...
"Lift up thy hand over the land of Mizraim for the locust, that he may come up over the land of Mizraim, and destroy every herb of the earth, whatsoever the hail hath left" (Targum...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 10:13) describes the delivery mechanism with quiet care. "Mosheh lifted up his rod over the land of Mizraim, and the Lord brought an east wind...
"The locust came up over all the land of Mizraim, and settled in all the limits of Mizraim exceedingly strong. Before him there had been no locust so hard, nor will there be like h...
"He covered the face of all the land, until the land was darkened, and every herb of the ground was consumed, and all the fruit of the tree that the hail had left; and nothing gree...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 10:19) records one of the most curious details in the entire plague narrative. "The Lord turned a wind from the west of exceeding strength, an...
The Lord instructs Moses to bring the ninth plague at an unusual hour. "Lift up thy hand towards the height of the heavens," the Lord says (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 10:2)1...
