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The Torah's "his days shall be 120 years" gets a full theological frame in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:3). God speaks by His Word: "All the generations of the wicked which...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:7) uses the Memra formula to absorb the Torah's most troubling phrase. The Hebrew says God "repented" that He made humanity. The Targum frames ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:11) isolates the cause of the Flood. "The earth was corrupted through the inhabitants thereof, who had declined from the ways of righteousness ...
The verdict lands, and it lands on Noah's ear first. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:13) gives us the direct speech: "The end of all flesh cometh before Me, because the earth ...
The Flood is named. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:17) renders it: "I, behold, I bring a flood of waters upon the earth to swallow up all flesh which hath in it the spirit of...
Even at the last possible moment, the door of repentance stays open. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:4) has God tell Noah: "Behold, I give you space of seven days; if they wil...
Before the first drop of the Flood struck the earth, heaven waited. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:10) teaches that the Holy One delayed the deluge for seven full days after ...
The Flood did not arrive gently. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:11) dates it with astonishing precision: the six-hundredth year of Noah's life, the second month, the seventee...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:21) is short and unbearable. Every bird. Every domestic animal. Every wild beast. Every crawling creature. And every one of the sons of men. Ex...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:1) turns the tide of the story with a phrase the Hebrew does not quite say. And the Lord in His Word remembered Noah, and then — listen careful...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:5) tracks the waters like a patient sailor counting days. The Aramaic says that the waters went and diminished until the tenth month, the month...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:21) preserves one of the gentlest and most realistic sentences the Holy One ever speaks. After Noah's sacrifice, the Lord said in His Word, I w...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:4) delivers one of the oldest and most surprising laws in Torah. Flesh which is torn of the living beast, what time the life is in it, or that ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:5) extends the reach of divine justice to places human courts cannot follow. The blood of your lives I will require of every animal which hath ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:6) gives Torah's foundational teaching on the sanctity of human life a haunting expansion. Whoso sheddeth the blood of man, the judges, by witn...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:11) delivers the promise every frightened heart has clung to since Noah stepped off the ark. I will establish my covenant with you, and will no...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:12) introduces the idea of a sign — an ot — that will anchor the covenant through all time. This is the sign of the covenant which I establish ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:14) explains the rainbow with a detail the plain Hebrew does not supply. When I spread forth My glorious cloud over the earth, the bow shall be...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:15) is a verse that has carried comfort through every Jewish generation. I will remember My covenant which is between My Word and between you a...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:16) sharpens the promise one more time. The bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between th...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:17) closes the rainbow passage with a final seal. Noah is told face to face: This is the sign of the covenant that I have covenanted between My...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 10:9) gives us the first great villain after the Flood. He was a mighty rebel before the Lord; therefore it is said, From the day that the world ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 10:11) adds a twist no one reading the plain Hebrew would expect. From that land went forth Nimrod, and reigned in Athur, because he would not be...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 11:6) preserves a sentence that has given interpreters trouble for centuries. God looks down at the builders of Babel and says: they will not be ...
The plain verse in (Genesis 11:7) says only, Come, let us go down. The plural has troubled readers since antiquity. To whom is God speaking? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan answers without ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 11:8) does not describe a gentle scattering. It describes a massacre. The Word of the Lord — the Memra, that favorite Targumic circumlocution for...
The Hebrew Bible plays on words: the city is called Bavel because there the Holy One confused — balal — the tongues of the earth. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 11:9) preserves...
The Hebrew Bible says simply that Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth (Genesis 11:28). One quiet sentence. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan opens that sentence like a...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 12:3) performs one of its most characteristic moves — it drops the future straight into the past. The plain verse says, I will bless those who bl...
The verse in (Genesis 13:10) says Lot lifted up his eyes and saw the plain of the Jordan, well-watered, lush, an earthly paradise. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan pierces that pastoral scen...
The Hebrew Bible in (Genesis 13:13) says simply that the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners against the Lord, exceedingly. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan refuses that generality. The Ara...
A roster of kings is usually a place where readers skim. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:2) will not let you skim. It reads the names. The Aramaic treats each royal name as a...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:5) turns a military roll call into a tour of the archaic world's titans. Kedarlaomer's coalition sweeps through the land and smites three peop...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:6) adds a single parenthetical that rewrites a whole people's identity: the Choraee (dwellers in caverns) who were in the high mountains of Ge...
The verse in (Genesis 14:8) simply lists who showed up for the battle. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot let a list stay a list. It glosses Bela once more as the city which consumed it...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:9) makes a small geographical translation that reframes the entire conflict. The Hebrew Bible names four kings: Kedarlaomer of Elam, Tidal, Am...
The plain verse in (Genesis 14:10) is a grim military note: the vale of Siddim was full of tar pits, and the fleeing kings of Sodom and Amorah fell into them. Targum Pseudo-Jonatha...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 15:13) is severe enough: know with certainty that your seed will be a stranger in a land not theirs, and they will afflict them four hundred years. Targum Ps...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 15:14) promises judgment on the nation whom they shall serve. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives the judgment a number that has startled readers for centuries. Two...
When the sun went down on the covenant between the pieces, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:17) turns the Hebrew's smoking furnace and flaming torch into something far more vi...
Right after the terrifying vision of Gehinnom and the four kingdoms, the Lord sets a covenant. And Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:18) spells out the promise with an emphasis...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 16:5) lets Sarah speak at length, and the speech is a small masterpiece of grief, accusation, and memory. It begins quietly — my affliction is fr...
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 18:14) is the Torah's answer to every reader who has ever wondered whether God notices the small disbeliefs of the faithful. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan takes the Hebrew's ha-y...
The three travelers had finished their meal under the terebinths. They rose, and the Targum watches them split off into three different errands. The one who had come to announce a ...
There is a quiet line in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 18:17) that changes how you read the whole Sodom episode. God speaks, as the Targum puts it, bememra — with His Word — a...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 18:20) says only that the outcry of Sedom and Amorah is great and their sin very heavy. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan will not leave that vague. It hands us, in Ara...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 18:21) says only, "I will go down now and see." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan opens a window into what God is actually going down to see. And the window is heartbre...
