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When the foremen finally confront Moses and Aaron, their rage is spectacular. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the accusation: Our affliction is manifest before the Lord, but our p...
The fifth and deepest verb of redemption arrives in the next verse. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it with covenantal precision: I will bring you nigh before Me to be a people, a...
Moses returns to the slaves with the five expressions of redemption — and they do not hear him. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the heartbreak: Mosheh spake according to this to t...
The Holy One does not argue with Moses. He simply issues a new set of orders. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the dual commission: the Lord spake with Mosheh and with Aharon, and ...
In the middle of the Exodus narrative, the Torah pauses for a genealogy. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it with the ceremonial weight of a formal record: These are the heads of t...
The plagues are not only punishment. They are curriculum. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 10:2 records the Holy One's own reason: "In the hearing of thy sons and of thy childr...
When Pharaoh asks who will be going to worship, Moses answers without hesitation. "With our children and with our old men will we go; with our sons and with our daughters we will g...
Pharaoh responds with a sarcasm that reveals his actual intention. "He said to them, So may the Word of the Lord be a help to you: (but) how can I release (both) you and your child...
Before the final plague falls, the Lord gives Israel an instruction that would change the entire theology of the Exodus. "Speak now in the hearing of the people, That every man sha...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 11:3 notes a transformation that had happened gradually, almost without anyone noticing. "The Lord gave the people favour before the Mizraee; a...
Some commandments are famous for their grandeur. This one is famous for its neighborliness. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 12:4 addresses a perfectly mundane problem: what if you...
The most dangerous sentence in the Passover story is the one where Israel was told to tie a lamb to a post and wait. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 12:6 turns those four days of ...
The laws of Passover refuse the distinction between insider and outsider. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 12:19 says that whoever eats leaven during the seven days will perish fro...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 13:9 hears a strange instruction and decodes it into practice. The verse says the deliverance from Egypt shall be "a sign upon your hand, and a...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 13:14 imagines the future. A son, born long after Egypt, looks at his father performing the strange ritual of redeeming a firstborn donkey with...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 13:16 closes the tefillin section with a repetition that is not really a repetition. Once again the text says the Exodus must be inscribed and ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 13:18 takes a quiet verse and fills it with multiplication. The Hebrew says simply that Israel went up from Egypt. The Targum adds: "every one ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 13:19 tells a story the Hebrew only hints at. Moses, on the night Israel leaves Egypt, is not packing or leading. He is recovering a body. Jose...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 14:3 drops two shocking names into the Egyptian court. Pharaoh needs intelligence on the escaping Hebrews. Who gives it to him? Dathan and Abir...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 14:13 breaks Israel into four factions at the edge of the sea. Not "the people" united, but four parties, each with its own plan. The first sai...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 14:31 records the moment Israel becomes a nation of faith. They have just watched the mightiest army in the world drown. Now they "feared befor...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 15:2 turns a line from the Song at the Sea into a vision of impossible witnesses. "This is our God, who nourished us with honey from the rock, ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 15:3 softens a hard Hebrew line. The Torah reads "Adonai ish milchamah"—the Lord is a man of war. The phrase is startling. Is God really a "man...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 15:27 reads the stopover at Elim as a map of Israel's constitution: And they came to Elim; and in Elim were twelve fountains of water, a fountain f...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 16:5 reads the Sabbath instructions for the manna as a halakhic footnote to the whole story: And on the sixth day they shall prepare what they set ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 16:13 paints the arrival of the manna with a detail you will not find in the Hebrew: the dew was holy, and it was prepared as a table, round about ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 16:29 transforms a short Hebrew verse into the founding document of the Sabbath's geography: Behold, because I have given you the Sabbath, I gave y...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills in what the Hebrew leaves implicit: why Moses's hands grew heavy. "The hands of Moses were heavy, because the conflict was prolonged till the morro...
News travels, but rarely does it move a prince of Midian to action. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the turning point: "And Jethro, prince of Midian, the father-in-law of Moses,...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan locates Jethro's arrival at Israel's camp with unusual precision: "Jethro the father-in-law of Moses, and the sons of Moses, and his wife came to Moses a...
Few lines in the Torah are as unexpectedly tender as the one the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves at the moment of Jethro's arrival. He sends a message to Moses: "I, thy father-in-...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan stages Moses's greeting of Jethro with cinematic care: "Moses came forth from under the cloud of glory to meet his father-in-law, and did obeisance, and ...
When family reunites, the first thing out of the mouth is usually the story of what was survived. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records Moses's account to Jethro in condensed form: "M...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan specifies the three gifts that most moved Jethro: "Jethro rejoiced over all the good which the Lord had done unto Israel, and that He had given them mann...
A former priest of seven gods gives the first blessing-of-the-Name uttered by a convert. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records Jethro's words: "Blessed be the Name of the Lord who hat...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan describes a remarkable scene: "Jethro took burnt offerings and holy sacrifices before the Lord, and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat bread ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the moment Jethro's role changed from guest to advisor: "The father-in-law of Moses saw how much he toiled and laboured for his people; and he sa...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan sharpens Jethro's warning with a realism the plain text softens: "Thou wilt verily wear thyself away. Aaron also, and his sons, and the elders of thy peo...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves Jethro's opening directive with a nuance the Hebrew leaves quieter: "Now hearken to me and I will advise thee; and may the Word of the Lord be ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan expands Jethro's counsel into a short curriculum of communal life. "Give them counsel about the statutes and laws, make them understand the prayer they a...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the triage principle Jethro proposed: "Let them judge the people at all times, and every great matter bring to thee, but every little thing let...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan closes Jethro's advice with a striking promise: "If thou wilt do this, and exempt thyself from judging (every case) as the Lord shall give thee instructi...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan spells out the staggering arithmetic of Moses's judicial reform: "Moses selected able men from all Israel, and appointed them chief over the people — rab...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan marks the arrival at Sinai with three extraordinary words: "They had journeyed from Rephidim, and had come to the desert of Sinai, and Israel encamped th...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves one of the most surprising details in the entire Sinai narrative: "Moses on the second day went up to the summit of the mount; and the Lord cal...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the conditional terms of Israel's unique standing: "Now, if you will truly hearken to My Word and keep My covenant, you shall be more beloved b...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records one of the most consequential sentences ever spoken by a people: "All the people responded together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we w...
Before the Ten Words were spoken, Moses did something remarkable — he spoke back to God. "The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai," he said, "because You Yourself instructed us, s...
