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The Hebrew Bible in (Genesis 13:14) times the divine address with surgical precision: after that Lot had separated from him. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the clause verbatim be...
The promise in (Genesis 13:16) has a strange choice of image. God does not tell Abram his children will be like stars or like sand. Those images come later. Here the promise is as ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:14) delivers one of the boldest numeric readings in the Aramaic tradition. The Hebrew Bible says Abram armed three hundred and eighteen traine...
Having refused the king of Sedom's gift, Abraham was not done speaking. One refusal can become self-righteousness if you are not careful. So in the very next breath, according to T...
When the Lord lays down the sign of the covenant, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 17:10 catches a case the Hebrew leaves implicit. Every male among you shall be circumcised — tho...
The eighth day is the answer to a careful question: how soon can a newborn be brought under the covenant? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 17:12 settles the timing and then pushes...
Genesis 17:13 in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns a one-way sacrament into a chain. He who is circumcised shall circumcise him — the one already inside the covenant brings the next one...
Verse 14 is the hardest word in this chapter, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not round its edges. The uncircumcised male — unless he have someone to circumcise him — shall be cut ...
Genesis 17:23 is the verse in which Abraham stops listening and starts doing. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it with the urgency the Hebrew encodes: Abraham took Ishmael his son, a...
Genesis 18:5 in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns a simple meal into a moment of blessing. Abraham will bring bread so that the travelers may strengthen their hearts — and, the Targum a...
When Abraham begins his famous bargain in Genesis 18:24, the Hebrew simply says "perhaps there are fifty righteous within the city." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns this into a detail...
The bargain continues. Abraham has offered fifty — ten righteous in each of the five plain-cities. Now, in Genesis 18:28, he tries a different tactic. "Perhaps of the fifty innocen...
By Genesis 18:31, Abraham is calling God "the Lord of all the world" — ribbon kol alma in the Targum's Aramaic — and apologizing in advance. "Imploring mercy, I have now begun to s...
Here is where the bargain ends, and here is where Targum Pseudo-Jonathan slips in the detail most English readers miss. "I implore mercy before Thee! Let not the anger of the Lord,...
The mob scene in Genesis 19:4 is one of the most chilling lines in Torah. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it with unflinching clarity. "They had not yet lain down, when the wicked m...
The crowd at Lot's door is done bargaining. Genesis 19:9, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan's Aramaic, records the exact accusation they throw at him. "Did not this come alone to sojourn a...
Picture the king of Gerar standing before the stranger who had walked into his court with a wife he called a sister. Abimelech is not shouting. He is stunned. In Targum Pseudo-Jona...
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 false...
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 Se...
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 Beersheb...
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, in ...
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 a ...
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 hear ...
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 si...
The Torah keeps its genealogies lean, but they are never decorative. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 25:13 records the names of Ishmael's firstborn children: "Neboi, and Arab, an...
The Torah closes its account of Ishmael's line with a map. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 25:18 names the borders: "they dwelt from Hindiki unto Chalutsa, which is in face of Mi...
It is a rare thing in the Torah — a gentile king confessing, in plain terms, that he has seen God at work. But that is exactly what Abimelech does. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan recor...
The request Abimelech makes of Isaac is almost humble. "Lest thou do us evil. Forasmuch as we have not come nigh thee for evil, and as we have acted with thee only for good, and ha...
The treaty is signed in the morning. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a detail the Hebrew only whispers. "He broke off from the bridle of his ass, and gave one part to them for a te...
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...
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...
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 mouth ...
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 all t...
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 eth...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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...
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...
The messengers returned with the news every fleeing brother dreads. We came to thy brother, to Esau, and he also cometh to meet thee, and four hundred chief-warriors with him (Gene...
"And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and sojourned there the twelve months of the year; and he built in it a midrasha, and for his flocks he made booths; therefore he called the name o...
Hamor and his son Shekem needed to convince the men of their city to undergo mass circumcision — an extraordinary demand. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 34:21) preserves the sales...
"And all they who came out of the gate of his city received from Hamor and from Shekem, his son; and they circumcised every male, all who came out of the gate of the city." Targum ...
"You have made my name to go forth as evil among the inhabitants of the land, among the Kenaanites and Phezerites. And I am a people of small number, and they will gather together ...
The Torah says the brothers hated Joseph and could not speak a word of peace to him (Genesis 37:4). Readers sometimes take this as a character flaw — petty brothers who refused to ...
The Targum repeats, in miniature, the pattern that has already defined Joseph's life. The captain of the prison confided all the prisoners who were in the house to Joseph's hands, ...
