510 texts in Midrash Aggadah
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 10:23) reveals a secret buried in the ninth plague that the plain Torah only hints at. "No man saw his brother, and none arose from his place ...
After three days of darkness, Pharaoh calls Moses back. "Go, worship before the Lord; only your sheep and your oxen shall abide with me: your children also may go with you" (Targum...
Moses's answer to Pharaoh's last offer is one of the most famous lines in Exodus. "Our flocks, moreover, must go with us; not one hoof of them shall remain; for from them we are to...
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...
Moses's reply to Pharaoh's death-threat is magnificently calm — and the Targum reveals why. "Thou hast spoken fairly. While I was dwelling in Midian, it was told me in a word from ...
Before the final plague falls, the Lord gives Israel an instruction that would change the entire theology of the Exodus. "Speak now in the hearing of the people, That every man sha...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 11:3) notes a transformation that had happened gradually, almost without anyone noticing. "The Lord gave the people favour before the Mizraee;...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 11:5) announces the tenth plague in language that is almost merciless in its precision. "Every firstborn in the land of Mizraim shall die: fro...
There is a grief so total it sets a boundary in time. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 11:6) frames the final plague not only as a wound inflicted but as an unrepeatable event. Mi...
The strangest detail in the tenth plague is not what happens, but what does not. On the night when all of Mizraim wails, no dog in Israel so much as growls. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan ...
Moses almost never loses his temper in the written text, but on this night he does. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 11:8) describes him warning Pharaoh that the day is coming whe...
Few verses in the Hebrew Bible have troubled readers as much as the one that says God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 11:10) offers a subtle reading: th...
Until the night before the Exodus, time belonged to Egypt. The calendar that mattered was the calendar of Pharaoh, its new year set by the flooding of the Nile. Targum Pseudo-Jonat...
One of the most useful things a targum does is flag which commandments were meant to last forever and which were meant only for a single moment. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 1...
Some commandments are famous for their grandeur. This one is famous for its neighborliness. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:4) addresses a perfectly mundane problem: what if y...
The most dangerous sentence in the Passover story is the one where Israel was told to tie a lamb to a post and wait. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:6) turns those four days o...
The original Passover meal was not symbolic. The bitter herbs on the first seder plate were real bitter herbs, eaten in a real hurry on a real night. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exo...
One reason the first Passover feels archaic to modern readers is that it was archaic even to the people eating it. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:9) piles up the restrictions...
Leftovers are rarely a theological problem, but in the Pesach laws they become one. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:10) addresses what to do with any remnant of the lamb that ...
Some of the most famous images of Passover — the belted tunic, the shoes on the feet, the staff in the hand — were never meant to continue. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:11)...
Scale matters in apocalyptic theology. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:12) opens the heavens over Mizraim and reveals something the plain verse leaves hidden: the Lord descend...
One of the most striking interpretive moves in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan happens quietly on (Exodus 12:13). The verse states that the blood on the doorposts will be a sign for Israel,...
The law of unleavened bread contains one of the sharpest penalties in the Torah. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:15) says that anyone who eats leavened bread during the seven ...
Passover has two names. The night of deliverance is Pesach. The week that follows is Chag haMatzot — the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:17) preserv...
The laws of Passover refuse the distinction between insider and outsider. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:19) says that whoever eats leaven during the seven days will perish f...
Most translations of (Exodus 12:21) render Moses's words to the elders as a simple instruction: go and take a lamb. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan sharpens it into a rebuke. "Withdraw your...
The tool that saved Israel was the humblest plant in the garden. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:22) says that each household took a bunch of hyssop, dipped it in the lamb's b...
The difference between the plain Hebrew and the Aramaic of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:23) is the insertion of the Memra — the Word of the Lord. In the Hebrew, God passes ...
The name of the Pesach offering is usually translated "the sacrifice of the passing over." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:27) renames it in a way that catches the heart. In t...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:29) opens up a corner of the Exodus story that few readers notice. The verse says the firstborn of Egypt died, from Pharaoh's heir down to the ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:30) describes Pharaoh rising in the night, and with him every one of his servants and every surviving Mizraee. The great cry goes up. And then ...
Some of the geographic details in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan are staggering. On (Exodus 12:31), the Targum pauses to describe the map. The border of Mizraim extended four hundred phars...
The final hour of the Egyptian captivity is captured in a sentence of panic. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:33) describes how Moses, Aaron, and the sons of Israel heard Phara...
One of the most tender details in the Exodus is hidden in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:34). As Israel fled Mizraim, the people carried their unleavened dough on their heads...
The most famous number in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan's account of the Exodus is seven. On (Exodus 12:37), as Israel moves from Pilusin (Pelusium) toward Succoth, one hundred thirty tho...
The first matzah was not baked in an oven. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:39) says that Israel divided the unleavened dough they had brought out of Mizraim — the same dough t...
One of the great numerical puzzles of the Torah is solved openly by Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:40). The Hebrew says Israel lived in Mizraim for four hundred thirty years....
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:41) continues the chronological reconstruction begun the verse before. Thirty years passed between the Covenant Between the Pieces and the birt...
Of all the expansions in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, few are as beautiful as the Four Nights passage on (Exodus 12:42). The Aramaic says there are four nights written in the Book of Me...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:3) records the speech Moses gave on the morning after the Exodus. The Aramaic phrase from the house of the bondage of slaves stacks up two word...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:5) lists the peoples whose land is being promised: the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites. The Aramaic keeps the old Torah ...
The obligation to tell the Pesach story to the next generation is compressed into a single sentence in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:8). The Aramaic reads: "thou shalt instr...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:9) hears a strange instruction and decodes it into practice. The verse says the deliverance from Egypt shall be "a sign upon your hand, and...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:14) imagines the future. A son, born long after Egypt, looks at his father performing the strange ritual of redeeming a firstborn donkey wi...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:15) gives the father's answer when the son keeps asking. Why the firstborn? Because of one night. "When the Word of the Lord had hardened t...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:16) closes the tefillin section with a repetition that is not really a repetition. Once again the text says the Exodus must be inscribed an...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:17) answers a question the Torah only gestures at. Why did God not send Israel by the short coastal road through the land of the Philistine...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:18) takes a quiet verse and fills it with multiplication. The Hebrew says simply that Israel went up from Egypt. The Targum adds: "every on...
