686 texts in Midrash Aggadah
Joseph was the second most powerful man in Egypt. He could have ordered the funeral procession with a wave of his hand. Instead, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves a curious diplomat...
Joseph's request to Pharaoh hinges on a vow he cannot break. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it simply. "My father made me swear, saying, Behold, I die, in the sepulchre which I hav...
When Pharaoh granted Joseph's request, a procession formed that had no precedent in Hebrew history. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records it plainly. "And Joseph went up to bury his fathe...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records a small, telling detail about the funeral caravan. "And all the men of Joseph's house, and his brethren, and his father's household: only their child...
Midway between Egypt and Hebron, the procession stopped. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan describes the scene. "They came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jardena, and the...
When the Canaanite natives saw the Egyptian-Israelite procession mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they did something startling. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records it. "They loo...
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...
The brothers were terrified. So they did what frightened children do — they invoked the father. "Thus shall you say to Joseph: forgive now the guilt of thy brethren and their sin, ...
Comes the answer. Joseph looks at his brothers — these old, frightened men — and finally explains the awkward meal. "You indeed imagined against me evil thoughts, that when I did n...
The Torah records a small family scene: "And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation; also the sons of Makir the son of Menasheh were born on Joseph's knees" (Genesis...
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 cor...
There will be false redeemers. Joseph knows this. Before he closes his eyes, he hands his children a test. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis (50:25) expands his oath dramatical...
"And Joseph died, the son of a hundred and ten years. And they embalmed him with perfumes, and laid him in an ark, and submerged him in the midst of the Nilos of Mizraim." The Tora...
