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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 deta...
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 innoc...
Abraham is not tired yet. In (Genesis 18:29) he descends one rung further in his negotiation, and the Targum spells out the logic most translations hide. "Perhaps there may be fort...
At (Genesis 18:30), Abraham's nerve almost breaks. "Let not the displeasure of the Lord, the Lord of all the world, wax strong against me, and I will speak." The Targum is tracking...
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...
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...
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...
The door is about to break. The mob is surging forward. And then (Genesis 19:11), in the Targum's rendering, becomes the moment the heavens intervene directly. "But the men who wer...
The night is almost over. The angels have told Lot that the city is finished. (Genesis 19:14) describes his frantic effort to save the only other relatives he has in town. "And Lot...
The sky is beginning to lighten. The judgment is scheduled for sunrise. (Genesis 19:15) finds the angels pleading with a man who cannot quite make himself move. "And at the time th...
Sometimes the purest image of divine mercy in Torah is also the most embarrassing. (Genesis 19:16) in the Targum reads this way. "But he delayed: and the men laid hold on his hand,...
The moment they clear the gates of Sedom, the angelic pair splits. (Genesis 19:17), in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, makes the division of labor unmistakable. "And it was that as they le...
The angel has commanded Lot to flee to the mountain. Lot looks at the rising sun and the distant ridges and says, in (Genesis 19:19), a deeply human thing. "Behold, now, thy servan...
Lot continues his nervous negotiation in (Genesis 19:20). "Behold, now, I pray, this city, it is a near habitation, and convenient to escape thither; and it is small, and the guilt...
In (Genesis 19:21), the Targum renders the angelic answer with a startling economy. "And He said, Behold, I have accepted thee in this matter also, that I will not overthrow the ci...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 19:24) preserves one of the most heartbreaking traditions in all of rabbinic literature about the destruction of Sedom and Amorah. "And the Word ...
(Genesis 19:26) is famously brief. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is not. "And his wife looked after the angel, to know what would be in the end of her father's house, for she was of the d...
(Genesis 19:29) gives the whole Sodom episode its underlying machinery in a single sentence. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan translates it plainly. "And it was when the Lord destroyed the c...
Lot's arc is almost done. (Genesis 19:30) places him, finally, where the angel originally told him to go in (Genesis 19:17) — the mountain. "And Lot went up from Zoar, and dwelt in...
The action shifts south. Abraham has traveled into the region of Gerar, called Sarah his sister instead of his wife, and the local king Abimelech has taken her into his household. ...
(Genesis 20:4) is remarkable for how boldly Abimelech speaks back to Heaven. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: "But Abimelek had not come nigh to defile her; and he said, Lord, shall the son...
God answers Abimelech in (Genesis 20:6), and the Targum's rendering is extraordinary. "And the Word of the Lord said to him in a dream, Before Me also it is manifest that in the tr...
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...
When the angel finally calls from heaven, the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:17) gives the reason out loud: for the righteousness' sake of Abraham. Ishmael lives not beca...
A king with a general at his side walks out to the tent of a stranger. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:22), Abimelech and Phikol, chief of his host, come to Abraham with a...
The voice from heaven arrives just in time. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:12), the Aramaic renders the command in its sharpest possible form: Stretch not out thy hand up...
Rivekah had only just finished her story, gold still on her hand, when her brother Laban moved. The Torah's text is brief, but Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:30) notices the...
This is one of those verses where the Targum tells you a whole murder plot the Torah never mentions. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:33) says the meal set before Eliezer was ...
There is a class of moment in the Torah where even the schemers have to stop scheming. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:50) captures one. After Eliezer finishes his story, Lab...
This is one of the most startling single verses in the Targum. Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:55) tells us what happened while everyone was still talking. Bethuel, the father of Ri...
This is the prophecy Rebekah receives in the study house of Shem, and it reframes every story that follows. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:23) preserves the oracle with one ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan wants you to notice something the plain verse almost glosses over. This is not the first famine in Canaan. It is the second. "And there was a mighty fami...
Abimelech's second sentence to Isaac is sharper than his first. "Why hast thou done this to us? It might have been that the king, who is the principal of the people, had lain with ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a detail to the first quarrel in Gerar that changes the whole story. The plain text says only that the shepherds of Gerar fought Isaac's shepherds o...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a detail the plain Hebrew only implies. "And when Izhak went forth from Gerar the wells dried up, and the trees made no fruit; and they felt that it...
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 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...
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 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 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...
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 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...
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...
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 ...
