686 texts in Midrash Aggadah
Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid, bears Jacob a son whom Rachel names Dan, from the Hebrew din, "judgment" (Genesis 30:6). Rachel says, God has judged me and heard my prayer. The Targum P...
The second son born through Bilhah is named Naphtali, and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan hears in the name a principle of Jewish spiritual life. Rachel says: With affliction afflicted ...
Leah names the second son of her handmaid Zilpah Asher, from osher, "happiness" or "praise" (Genesis 30:13). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan translates the name into a prophecy about th...
The Torah says Reuben went out in the days of the wheat harvest and found dudaim, mandrakes, in the field (Genesis 30:14). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan specifies the month: Sivan, th...
The exchange between Leah and Rachel over the mandrakes is one of the rawest sibling arguments in Genesis. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the Aramaic bite. Is it a little thi...
A small Targumic detail in (Genesis 30:16) captures how Leah knew her husband had returned from the fields. She heard the voice of the braying of the ass. Jacob's donkey. Leah reco...
The fifth son of Leah is Issachar, and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 30:18) gives his name a remarkable explanation. Leah says, The Lord hath given me my reward, for that ...
After Issachar, Leah bears Zebulun, the sixth son of her own womb. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 30:20) gives his name a meaning that becomes a pillar of Jewish economic e...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 30:21) preserves one of the most startling moments in the entire tribal genealogy. Originally, says the Aramaic tradition, the baby in Leah's...
After years of infertility, the Torah says God remembered Rachel (Genesis 30:22). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan expands the verb. The remembrance of Rachel came before the Lord, and t...
Rachel finally bore a son. She named him Joseph, from the Hebrew asaph, "to gather away" (Genesis 30:23). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns her naming into a prophecy about a river ...
The moment Rahel gave birth to Joseph, something shifted in Jakob. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us that the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, settled upon him, and he looked ahead a...
There is an old phrase Jakob quietly used against his father-in-law: the Lord hath blessed thee at my foot. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it exactly (Genesis 30:30). The little ...
Laban tried to buy him off. What shall I give thee? he asked — the question of a man who believes everything has a price (Genesis 30:31). Jakob, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan's telling...
The offer Jakob put on the table sounded like a bad deal on purpose. I will pass through thy whole flock today, he said to Laban, and will set apart every lamb streaked and spotted...
Jakob added one more clause to the contract, and it is the most striking line of the whole negotiation. My righteousness shall testify for me tomorrow, when my wages shall be broug...
The moment the deal was struck, Laban moved fast. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan describes him that same day separating out every goat marked on its feet, every spotted one, every one with...
Laban did not just separate the flocks. He placed three days of walking between them — a buffer wide enough that no marked goat could wander home by accident, no hopeful lamb could...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan names the trees: flowering poplar, almond, and plane (Genesis 30:37). Jakob did not pick the first branch at hand. He chose three specific species, each one ...
Jakob knew exactly where to set the peeled rods — in the canals, in the troughs of water, at the one place where the flocks were certain to gather (Genesis 30:38). Targum Pseudo-Jo...
As the marked lambs began to appear, Jakob did not mix them back in. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is precise: he set them apart, placed them in front of the remaining flocks, and then qu...
Here is the detail most readers miss. Jakob did not set the peeled rods in the troughs every time. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan explains that he brought them out only when the early, the...
The house turned cold long before anyone said a word out loud. Jakob heard the words of the sons of Laban — not spoken to him, but about him (Genesis 31:1). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan ...
He called Rahel and Leah out to the field — away from Laban's tents, away from the household's ears — and spoke plainly. I consider the looks of your father, and, behold, they are ...
Jakob told his wives what their father had done during the twenty years of his service. If now he said, The streaked shall be thy wages, all the sheep bare streaked; and if now he ...
Jakob told his wives the other half of the story — the half no one else had witnessed. At the time when the flocks conceived, that I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream, and, beho...
In the dream, the voice said, Lift up now thine eyes and see. And Jakob saw exactly what had been promised: every goat rising upon the flock was spotted in its feet, streaked, or w...
The voice in the dream named itself. I am Eloha who did reveal Myself to thee at Beth El where thou didst anoint the pillar, and swear the oath before Me (Genesis 31:13). Targum Ps...
This is one of the most disturbing explanations in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, and it changes how you read Rahel's theft forever. While Laban was away shearing his flock, Rahel stole t...
Jakob crossed the Pherat and set his face for the mountain of Gilead. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives the reader a future-sight camera angle the plain text does not: Jakob saw, by the...
Here is why Laban did not notice Jakob was gone for three full days. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us: when Jakob departed, the shepherds went to the well and found no water. They w...
Laban gathered his kinsmen and chased for seven days until he caught up at Mount Gilead. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan paints the arrival as a contrast too sharp to ignore. Laban had ridd...
Between Laban's hot pursuit and his morning confrontation, something happened in a dream that the plain Hebrew text only hints at. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan makes it vivid: an angel c...
Once the angel had clipped his wings, Laban arrived the next morning wearing the mask of a wounded host. Why didst thou hide from me that thou wouldst go, and steal my knowledge, a...
Unexpectedly, Laban confessed. There is sufficiency in my hand to do evil with thee, he said — the words of a man who has just reviewed his own forces and knows he could crush the ...
When Laban accused the camp of stealing his teraphim, Jakob answered with a vow that sounds, read in hindsight, like a tragedy spoken aloud. With whomsoever thou shalt find the ima...
Laban went tent by tent. First Jakob's, then Leah's, then the tents of the two concubines. Nothing. And he went out from the tent of Leah, and entered the tent of Rahel (Genesis 31...
Rahel sat on the camel's saddle where the idols lay hidden, and when her father entered she said the words that ended the search: Let it not be displeasing in my lord's eyes that I...
For twenty years Jakob had held his tongue. Every shift of wages, every cold look, every whisper from the sons — he had swallowed them all. Now, after the fruitless search, somethi...
After the failed search, Jakob did what a righteous man does when falsely accused. He opened his tents. Having, therefore, searched all my vessels, what hast thou found of all the ...
Jakob reviewed the twenty years before the tribunal. That torn by wild beasts I have not brought to thee; for had I sinned, from my hand thou wouldst have required it (Genesis 31:3...
Jakob drew up the final accounting for the court of kinsmen. These twenty years have I been in thy house, serving thee; fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy ...
Jakob named two patriarchal witnesses in one breath. Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and He whom Izhak feareth had been in my help, even now hadst thou sent me awa...
Cornered, Laban made the last argument of a man who cannot let go. The children whom thou hast received of thy wives are my children, and the children whom they may bear will be re...
The treaty had one more clause. Laban said to Jakob, If thou shalt afflict my daughters, doing them injury, and if thou take upon my daughters, there is no man to judge us, the Wor...
They built a boundary out of stone. This mound is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I may not pass beyond this mound to thee, and that thou mayest not pass beyond this ...
After the stones were stacked, Jakob did something remarkable. Jakob slew sacrifices in the mount, and invited his kinsmen who came with Laban to help themselves to bread, and they...
Jakob saw the encampment approaching and his first instinct was dread. These are not the host of Esau who are coming to meet me, nor the host of Laban, who have returned from pursu...
