686 texts in Midrash Aggadah
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a line that pulls the whole arc of Genesis together in one verse. The vestments Rebekah puts on Jacob, the Targum tells us, "had formerly been Adam'...
This is the sentence the rabbis have wrestled with for two thousand years. Jacob, dressed in Adam's garments, stands in front of his blind father and says, "I am Esau thy firstborn...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves one of the most quoted lines in all of Genesis. Isaac, blind and suspicious, draws Jacob near, touches him, and says, "This voice is the voice ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan quietly drops a cosmic detail into the meal. When Isaac asks for wine, the Hebrew text does not explain where it comes from. The Targum does. "He had no ...
When Isaac draws Jacob close and breathes him in, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us what the patriarch actually smells. It is not the field. It is not the goats. It is the incens...
The blessing Isaac pours over Jacob is compact, poetic, and nearly liturgical. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it in solemn Aramaic. "Therefore the Word of the Lord give thee of...
The closing line of Isaac's blessing, as the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it, reaches beyond Jacob and names two future figures by name. "Let them who curse thee, my son, be accu...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan sharpens the timing of the scene to a breath. "It was when Izhak had finished blessing Jakob, and Jakob had only gone out about two handbreadths from Izh...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan offers a theological explanation for why Esau arrived late and empty-handed. "The Word of the Lord had impeded him from taking clean venison; but he had ...
The moment Esau walks in with his meal, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us something the Hebrew only hints at. "Izhak was moved with great agitation when he heard the voice of Esa...
The cry Esau lets out when he realizes the blessing is gone is one of the most haunting sounds in the Torah. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it in its raw Aramaic. "He cried w...
There is a pun beneath Esau's outburst, and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not let us miss it. "His name is truly called Jakob; for he hath dealt treacherously with me these two t...
Isaac's answer to his weeping elder son is one of the saddest sentences in the Torah. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves its resignation with a quiet Aramaic cadence. "Behold, I ...
The blessing Isaac gives Esau, as the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records it, is a warning and a prophecy woven together. "Upon thy sword shalt thou depend, entering at every place: yet...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan lets us listen in on Esau's inner counsel, and it is chilling. "Esau said in his heart, I will not do as Kain did, who slew Habel in the life (time) of h...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not let us wonder how Rebekah heard. "The words of Esau her elder son, who thought in his heart to kill Jakob, were shown by the Holy Spirit to Rive...
Rebekah's instruction to Jacob is urgent, and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a Genesis-deep lament to the end of it. "Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day: thou being s...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives us Rebekah's final argument to Isaac, and it is pointed. "I am afflicted in my life on account of the indignity of the daughters of Heth. If Jakob ...
The verse is plain, and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan keeps it that way. "Arise, go to Padan of Aram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother's father, and take thee from thence a wife fro...
When Isaac laid his hands on Jacob a second time, this time with full knowledge of whom he was blessing, he called down the name by which the patriarchs had always known the Holy O...
Before Jacob left Beersheba for Haran, Isaac did something that could not be undone. He transferred the blessing of Abraham — the promise of land, seed, and covenant — from father ...
Esau was watching. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 28:6) lingers on what he noticed: not only that Isaac blessed Jacob, but that Isaac sent Jacob to Padan Aram with a very s...
When the warning finally reached Esau — do not marry a Canaanite — he did what a man who has already lost tries to do. He went sideways to find a wife who might count. The Targum P...
The Torah says only that Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran (Genesis 28:10). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan refuses to let the sentence stay that quiet. It unpacks the day into...
The Torah says Jacob came upon a place and lay down because the sun had set (Genesis 28:11). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot read that verse without shouting. It was not just any...
Jacob dreamed, and a ladder stood from earth to heaven (Genesis 28:12). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills the rungs with specific traffic. The two angels on the ladder were not anon...
In the Torah, God simply stands beside Jacob in the dream (Genesis 28:13). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adjusts the posture with surgical care. What Jacob saw was not God Himself but...
The promise to Jacob at Bethel scales. From a single man sleeping on stones, the Word of God opens outward: sons as many as the dust, spreading west, east, north, and south (Genesi...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 28:15) renders a line that changes how you read Jacob's exile. God does not merely promise Jacob that He will be with him. God says: My Word ...
When Jacob woke from his ladder-dream, he was shaken. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 28:17) spells out what exactly had shaken him. How dreadful and glorious is this place....
Jacob's vow at Bethel is, in the plain Torah text, a conditional prayer: if God keeps me and feeds me, then the Lord will be my God (Genesis 28:20–21). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan r...
Jacob set a pillar and poured oil on it (Genesis 28:22). Then he made a promise about what that pillar would become. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan goes further than the plain verse. T...
When Jacob arrived in Haran after his kefitzat ha-derekh — the folding of the road — he came to a well in a field (Genesis 29:2). Three flocks of sheep lay beside it, and a great s...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 29:3) describes the mechanism of the Haran well with the precision of a halachic note. The flocks gathered. The stone was rolled from the mou...
Rachel arrives at the well with her father's sheep, and the Torah calls her ro'ah — a shepherdess (Genesis 29:9). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan stops to explain why the daughter of a ...
The Torah says Jacob rolled the stone from the well, watered the flock, and kissed Rachel (Genesis 29:10–11). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns the well itself into a character. Jac...
The Torah tells us Jacob told Rachel he was her kinsman (Genesis 29:12). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills in a conversation between them. Jacob explained to Rachel that he had come...
In the plain Torah, Laban hears that Jacob has arrived and runs to meet him (Genesis 29:13). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan unpacks exactly what Laban had already heard — and the list ...
The Torah calls Leah's eyes rakkot — tender, soft, weak (Genesis 29:17). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reframes the entire verse. Her eyes were moist from weeping and praying before t...
The wedding in Haran was not a simple celebration. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 29:22) reconstructs the conversation Laban had with the men of the town. Laban gathered al...
The morning after the wedding, Jacob discovered that the bride under the veil had been Leah, not Rachel (Genesis 29:25). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan explains how the deception had b...
The Torah says the Lord saw that Leah was hated and opened her womb, and Rachel was barren (Genesis 29:31). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan softens and sharpens the verse in the same br...
When Leah named her firstborn Reuben, she said the Hebrew phrase ra'ah Adonai b'onyi — "the Lord has seen my affliction" (Genesis 29:32). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan hears the phras...
Leah's second son is Simeon, whose name comes from the Hebrew shama, "He heard" (Genesis 29:33). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan extends her words into another layer of prophecy. She na...
With her third son, Leah reaches for a new hope. This time, she thinks, Jacob will at last be yilaveh — attached — to her (Genesis 29:34). So she names the child Levi, from the roo...
The fourth son is Judah, from the root hoda'ah, "thanksgiving" (Genesis 29:35). Leah speaks one of the most remarkable lines in the entire matriarchal record: This time will I give...
Leah had four sons. Rachel had none. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 30:1) preserves the raw edge of her suffering. Rachel was envious of her sister. The Aramaic does not hi...
The Torah says Jacob's anger burned against Rachel (Genesis 30:2). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan keeps the heat of the verb. The anger of Jakob was strong against Rahel. Why was he an...
