686 texts in Midrash Aggadah
The biblical verse is blunt. Sarah tells Abraham to cast out the handmaid and her son. But in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:10), the Aramaic adds a sentence that changes ev...
When Abraham hesitates, the Holy One settles it with a line that should be underlined in every copy of the Torah. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:12), the Aramaic makes th...
Dawn in the house of Abraham. Bread on a shoulder. A cruse of water tied to a woman's waist. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:14), the Aramaic paraphrase adds a detail the ...
The Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan never lets a wilderness story pass without asking why the suffering. In Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:15), the answer is uncomfortable: when they cam...
The moment of turning is never where you expect it. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:16), the Aramaic paraphrase inserts a single gesture that changes the story's spiritual...
When the angel finally calls from heaven, the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:17) gives the reason out loud: for the righteousness' sake of Abraham. Ishmael lives not beca...
Here is one of the strangest verses in the Targum, and one of the most historically suggestive. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:21), Ishmael grows up in the wilderness of ...
A king with a general at his side walks out to the tent of a stranger. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:22), Abimelech and Phikol, chief of his host, come to Abraham with a...
Listen to how carefully Abimelech phrases his request. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:23), the king asks Abraham to swear by the Word of the Lord that he will not act fal...
A well in the Negev. Seven ewe lambs set apart. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:32), the Aramaic preserves the ancient name of the place — Beira de-Sheva, the Well of the ...
Here is the Targum's most beloved expansion of the patriarchal story. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:33), the Hebrew says Abraham planted a eshel — a tamarisk — in Beersh...
The voice from heaven does not soften what it is asking. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:2), each phrase lands heavier than the last: Take now thy son, thy only one whom t...
The Torah says Abraham took two of his young men. The Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:3) names them: Eliezer, the faithful servant, and Ishmael, the firstborn son whom Abr...
At the foot of the mountain, Abraham turns to his servants and speaks a sentence every reader has struggled with. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:5), the Aramaic expands t...
One of the most painful verses in the Torah is also one of its shortest. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:6), Abraham lays the wood of the offering on Isaac's shoulder. Fat...
The single most heartbreaking exchange in Genesis is seven words long. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:7), Isaac says abba — my father. Abraham answers ha-ana — I am here....
Stand where the Temple will stand and look down. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:9), the mountain beneath Abraham's feet is not virgin ground. It is the oldest altar in th...
This is the most astonishing verse in the Akeidah. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:10), Isaac is the one who speaks. He does not beg. He does not flee. He instructs his fa...
The voice from heaven arrives just in time. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:12), the Aramaic renders the command in its sharpest possible form: Stretch not out thy hand up...
Abraham lifts his eyes and sees a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:13), the Aramaic adds the detail that places this animal outside or...
Before he walks down the mountain, Abraham offers one more prayer. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:14), the Aramaic paraphrase turns the Hebrew's terse place-naming into a...
When the ram has been offered and the knife has been set down, the blessing arrives. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:17), the Aramaic preserves the double Hebrew intensifi...
Something strange happens at the end of the Akeidah. The Torah says Abraham returns to his young men — but does not mention Isaac returning with him. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (...
One of the most haunting expansions in the entire Targum is this one. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:20), the Aramaic explains how Sarah died: Satana came and told unto S...
A wife does not greet her husband at the door. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:2), the Aramaic names what Abraham finds when he comes down from the mountain: Abraham came ...
Watch how the men of Hebron address the grieving widower. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:6), the Hittite elders say to Abraham: Great before the Lord art thou among us, i...
The negotiation for Sarah's burial unfolds with legal care. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:8), Abraham approaches the gathered Hittite elders not with authority but with ...
The request is precise. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:9), Abraham names exactly what he wants: his double cave which is built in the side of his field, for the full pric...
Listen to how Ephron performs generosity. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:11), the Hittite landowner makes his first move: the field I give thee, and the cave which is in ...
Abraham has no interest in Ephron's performance. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:13), the patriarch addresses Ephron before the people of the land — the witnesses must hea...
The deal closes with a detail that tells you this verse was written by someone who knew markets. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:16), the Aramaic paraphrase describes the ...
The deed is recorded with the care of a surveyor. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:17), the Aramaic lists what Abraham now owns: the field, and the cave that is therein, an...
Abraham is old, and the question of Isaac's wife must be settled. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:2), the Aramaic makes explicit what the Hebrew only hints at: Abraham tel...
The command is unambiguous. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:3), Abraham makes Eliezer swear by the Word of the Lord God, whose habitation is in heaven on high, the God who...
Eliezer is a wise servant. He foresees a problem before he sets out. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:5), the Aramaic renders his careful question: suppose the woman may no...
When Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac, he did not send him alone. He sent him with a promise sealed by an oath. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan sharpens the moment: the God...
Ten camels left Beersheba with a mission no caravan had ever carried before. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:10) notes something most readers breeze past: "all the goodly tre...
The servant has arrived. He is standing at the well outside the city of Nachor, and he has to figure out, in a single afternoon, which woman at that well is meant to become the mot...
There is a phrase in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan that can stop you in your tracks. "And it was in that little hour, while he had not ceased to speak, that, behold, Rivekah came forth" (...
Once the camels had finished drinking — all ten of them, every last swallow — the servant reached into his pack and took out jewelry. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:22) refu...
Some blessings are said with eyes closed. This one was said with eyes wide open. The servant has just discovered that the girl who watered his ten camels is also the grand-niece of...
Rivekah had only just finished her story, gold still on her hand, when her brother Laban moved. The Torah's text is brief, but Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:30) notices the...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns (Genesis 24:31) into a confession. Laban greets the servant with the warmest possible words — "Come in, thou blessed of the Lord" — and then lets slip ...
A small verse. A large courtesy. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:32) describes the moment after the greeting: the servant enters, the camels are unharnessed, straw and proven...
This is one of those verses where the Targum tells you a whole murder plot the Torah never mentions. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:33) says the meal set before Eliezer was ...
Given permission to speak, Eliezer opens with a sentence that is not small talk. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:35) has the servant list the blessings God has poured on Abra...
When Eliezer retells the story to Laban and Bethuel, he quotes Abraham directly. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:40) preserves the quote exactly as Abraham had spoken it: "Th...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:43) gives us something the Torah rarely does. A narrator narrating himself. Eliezer is now sitting at Laban's table, and he is walking his hos...
