686 texts in Midrash Aggadah
This is one of the most searching moments in the Targum. After interpreting the dream, Joseph adds a request. The Aramaic frames it with a quiet rebuke: Joseph, leaving his higher ...
The Targum preserves a psychological detail the Hebrew only hints at. The chief baker, when he understood the interpretation of his companion's dream, seeing that he had interprete...
The Targum gives the baker's dream two readings, the way it gave the butler's dream two readings. This is its interpretation. The three baskets are the three enslavements with whic...
The Targum does not soften the sentence. At the end of three days, Pharoh with the sword will take away thy head from thy body, and will hang thee upon a gibbet, and the birds will...
On the third day, as Joseph had said, the prophecy lands. The Targum reports it with ceremonial quietness. It was on the third day, the nativity of Pharoh that he made a feast to a...
The Targum supplies the theological punchline the Torah leaves whispered. Because Joseph had withdrawn from the mercy that is above, and had put his confidence in the chief butler,...
The Targum opens chapter 41 with a subtle theological edit. The Hebrew says it was at the end of two years, and Pharaoh dreamed. Pseudo-Jonathan adds a single phrase that rearrange...
The Targum gives us the theological architecture of Pharaoh's sleepless morning. In the morning his spirit was troubled, and he sent and called all the magicians of Mizraim and all...
The Targum records the butler's long-delayed memory. There was with us a Hebrew youth, a servant of the chief executioner; and we recounted to him, and he explained the dream to us...
The Targum preserves the exact phrasing of Pharaoh's summons. I have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter for it; and I have heard of thee, saying, that if thou hear a drea...
The Targum preserves one of the great theological statements in Genesis. And Joseph answered Pharoh, saying, (It is) without me; it is not man who interprets dreams: but from befor...
Pharaoh watched something impossible in his dream. Seven gaunt cows swallowed seven fat ones whole, and when it was done, the thin cows looked exactly as wretched as before. No bul...
When Joseph stood before Pharaoh, he did not hedge. The seven wasted cattle and the seven thin ears scorched by the east wind were not two dreams but one, doubled for emphasis. Tar...
The words are almost shocking in their starkness. After seven years of surplus, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:30) warns that the coming famine will "make all the plenty tha...
When the dream was decoded, Joseph did not stop at interpretation. He handed Pharaoh a policy. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:34), the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah that t...
There is a quiet engineering decision tucked inside Joseph's plan that the Torah narrates in a single breath but the Targum lingers on. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:35) de...
The Torah says Joseph stored grain in cities. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:36) adds a detail that changes the picture entirely: the provision was laid up "as in a cavern i...
Pharaoh handed over almost everything. House, people, signet, authority. But one line held back: "only in the throne of the kingdom will I be greater than thou." Targum Pseudo-Jona...
The moment is cinematic. Pharaoh pulls his signet ring from his own finger and slides it onto Joseph's. He drapes him in fine linen. He fastens a collar of gold around his neck. Ta...
The runners went ahead of the second chariot and sang. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:43) preserves the words of that ancient coronation chant: "This is the Father of the ki...
Pharaoh's grant of power to Joseph sounds almost absurd when read slowly. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:44) renders it: "without thy word a man shall not lift up his hand t...
The Torah says Pharaoh gave Joseph a wife named Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:45) stops the reader short with a different clai...
The number is almost casual in the text, but the sages could not stop noticing it. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:46) records it: "And Joseph was a son of thirty years when ...
Seven harvests, gathered with deliberate care. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:48) records the logistics Joseph used: "he laid up the produce in the cities; the produce of th...
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...
Joseph named his second son Ephraim, from the Hebrew root meaning to be fruitful, to increase. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:52) preserves Joseph's explanation with a remar...
The seed itself failed. That is the detail Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:55) adds to the Torah's account: the famine in Egypt was not merely the absence of rain but the ref...
The moment the famine deepened, Joseph opened the storehouses. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:56) records the mechanics: "Joseph opened all the treasures and sold to the Miz...
The famine reached Canaan, and Jacob's sons stood around doing nothing. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:1) preserves the old man's impatience in a single cutting line: "Why a...
Jacob sent ten sons to Egypt, and they entered not as a group but through ten different doors. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:5) preserves the reason: "every one by one door...
The Torah says Joseph's brothers arrived in Egypt and bowed before him. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:6) inserts an astonishing middle act: before they bowed, they searched...
They stood in front of him and did not know him. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:7) records the moment: Joseph saw his brothers, recognized them, and then "made himself as a ...
How can someone recognize his brothers if they cannot recognize him? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:8) answers with a very physical explanation: the beard. The mathematics o...
The instant they bowed, he remembered. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:9) reports it without fanfare: "Joseph remembered the dreams he had dreamed of them." The sheaves and t...
They volunteered the family arithmetic before he asked for it. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:13) preserves their confession: twelve brothers, one youngest still with the fa...
Joseph escalates the pressure with a legal framing. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:16) preserves the formula: send one to fetch your youngest brother while the rest remain b...
After three days in custody, Joseph reconsiders. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:19) preserves his revised terms: one brother stays in prison, the rest go home with grain "fo...
The confession arrives without prompting. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:21) preserves the exact moment the brothers name what they did: "In truth we are guilty concerning o...
The oldest brother had a rough sort of vindication. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:22) preserves Reuben's statement: "Did I not tell you, saying, Do not sin against the yout...
Ten brothers stood before him, and Joseph picked Simeon. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:24) preserves the reason the Torah leaves quiet: Simeon "had counselled them to kill ...
After the test, the quiet kindness. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:25) describes Joseph's instructions: fill their vehicles with grain, return each man's money to his sack, ...
The nine brothers stopped for the night, and one of them discovered something impossible. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:27) names him: Levi, "who had been left without Sime...
The silver fell out, and the brothers' hearts stopped. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:28) preserves their reaction: "knowledge failed from their hearts, and each wondered wi...
The brothers returned to Canaan and retold the story to their father. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:33) preserves the terms as they remembered them: the lord of the land wi...
The test had one price. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:34) states it through the brothers' retelling: "bring your youngest brother to me, and I shall know that you are not s...
They emptied their sacks in front of Jacob, and the family saw the problem grow worse. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:35) reports it plainly: every man's bundle of money was...
The old man counted his losses aloud. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:36) preserves Jacob's lament word by word: "Of Joseph you said, An evil beast hath devoured him; of Sime...
Reuben tried the one guarantee that could possibly move his father. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:37) preserves the oath: "Slay my two sons with a curse if I do not bring h...
