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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...
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...
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 ...
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 ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan speaks plainly about what many readers would rather leave implicit (Genesis 33:2). Jacob "placed the concubines and their sons foremost." And the Targum even...
Esau offered to travel alongside Jacob, and Jacob declined. The reason he gave, preserved in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 33:13), sounds like a note from a shepherd's almanac. "...
"And the sons of Jacob had come up from the field when they heard. And the men were indignant, and very violently moved, because Shekem had wrought dishonour in Israel in lying wit...
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 ...
Simeon and Levi answered their father Jacob with a question that has rung through every generation since. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 34:31) gives them a longer speech than the...
One verse can hide two entire storylines. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 36:12) takes a bare genealogical note and cracks it open to reveal both. The Torah tells us that Timna ...
The Torah drops a cryptic detail in the middle of an Edomite genealogy: this is Anah who found the yemim in the wilderness. For two thousand years, readers have argued about what y...
The Torah lists the kings of Edom in a dry procession: Bela died, Jobab reigned, Jobab died, Husham reigned, and so on. It is one of those passages readers tend to skim. But Targum...
The Torah calls Joseph a na'ar — a youth — when he brings evil reports about his brothers to their father. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 37:2) gives that single word a whole b...
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 brothers heard the dream and exploded. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 37:8) preserves their two-edged outrage in a single tight sentence. They did not just laugh at Joseph....
When Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers in Shechem, the Torah gives no reason for the trip other than routine concern. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 37:13) reveals a f...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 37:18) lingers over three words: from afar. The brothers saw Joseph in the distance, long before he arrived. They had time. They had distance. An...
When the brothers decided to kill Joseph, Reuben stepped in. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 37:22) makes his motive explicit: because he would deliver him from their hand, and ...
How much is a brother worth? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 37:28) gives the answer with almost unbearable precision. The Midianite traders pulled Joseph out of the pit and sol...
The brothers had to produce evidence. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 37:31) explains their choice of weapon-of-deception with clinical precision: they killed a kid of the goats...
Ten brothers conspired. Ten brothers sold Joseph. Ten brothers dipped the coat in goat's blood. But when it came time to actually bring the coat to their father, Targum Pseudo-Jona...
The verse is brief and the Targum does not soften it. Judah turned aside to the veiled woman at the crossroads and said, Let me now go in with thee, for he knew not that she was hi...
The Torah is brisk: Joseph found favour in his eyes, and he served him, and he appointed him superintendent over his house, and all that he had he delivered in his hands (Genesis 3...
The Targum's gloss here is theologically sharp. From the time he appointed him superintendent over his house, and over all that he had, the Lord prospered the house of the Mizraite...
The Targum reports the architecture of the household plainly. Potiphar left all that he had in Joseph's hand, and took no knowledge of anything of his, except his wife with whom he...
The Aramaic gives Joseph's answer as a careful, almost bureaucratic list. Behold, my master taketh no knowledge of what is with me in the house, and all he hath he delivereth into ...
Joseph reaches the real wall. There is none in the house greater than I, nor hath he restricted me from anything but thyself, because thou art his wife: and how can I do this great...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a line the Torah does not spell out and that the Sages treasured. And it was when she spake with Joseph this day and the next, and he hearkened not ...
When Joseph flees, leaving his garment in her hand (Genesis 39:12), Potiphar's wife does not sit in silence. The Targum reports her pivot: she called the men of the house and said,...
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, ...
The Targum catches a small pastoral detail. Joseph asked the chiefs of Pharoh who were with him in the custody of his master's house, saying, Why is the look of your faces more evi...
The Targum preserves a psychological detail the Hebrew only hints at. The chief baker, when he understood the interpretation of his companion's dream, seeing that he had interprete...
The Targum records the butler's long-delayed memory. There was with us a Hebrew youth, a servant of the chief executioner; and we recounted to him, and he explained the dream to us...
Jacob thinks through every detail. If the brothers return to Egypt carrying only fresh money, the viceroy might remember the strange matter of the silver they discovered in their s...
The Torah says Joseph told his steward to "slaughter an animal and prepare" a meal for his brothers. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan hears more than catering. It hears halacha. "Bring the m...
When cornered, honest people speak plainly. The brothers corner themselves at the door of Joseph's house. Before anyone accuses them, they accuse the evidence. "It was when we had ...
The banquet is served on three separate tables. Joseph at one. His brothers at another. The Egyptian officials at a third. The Torah notes the separation briefly. Targum Pseudo-Jon...
The brothers are innocent of the cup, and they know it. Their defense, preserved in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, is an argument from character. "Behold, the money which we found in the ...
When Joseph bought up every private field in Egypt during the second year of famine, he left one class untouched. (Genesis 47:22) says he did not buy the land of the priests becaus...
When Jacob asked Joseph to bury him in Canaan rather than Egypt, he did not ask for a simple promise. In (Genesis 47:29) he asked Joseph to "put thy hand under my thigh" — a euphem...
In a moment easy to skip, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 47:30) flags a subtle refusal. Jacob had asked Joseph to place his hand on the mark of the covenant and swear to bu...
A father can love his sons and still refuse to stand on their side. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves one of the hardest lines in Jacob's blessing — a public disavowal. "In their co...
Joseph's blessing is the longest Jacob delivers, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan packs it with detail no translator could resist. "Joseph, my son, thou hast become great and mighty... b...
Power draws enemies. Joseph rose from a prison cell to the second throne of Egypt in a single day (Genesis 41:40), and the men he displaced never forgave him. Targum Pseudo-Jonatha...
