1,432 texts · Page 20 of 30
When Nebuchadnezzar carried Judah into exile, his officers wanted the captives dead. These men are men of death, they said. They refuse to obey the king's order. Execute them. One ...
When the Roman siege tightened around Jerusalem in 70 CE, wealth stopped meaning anything. Doeg ben Yosef was a rich man, and in the final weeks of the siege he stood in the street...
The Talmud in Nedarim asks an uncomfortable question: why did the children of Abraham, the father of faith, endure two hundred and ten years of Egyptian bondage? What did Abraham, ...
The rabbis noticed a quiet escalation in the promises made to the patriarchs about the land. To Abraham, God said, “Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in th...
Beruriah, the brilliant wife of Rabbi Meir, was the daughter of the martyred sage Hanina ben Teradyon. When her father was burned at the stake by the Romans for teaching Torah, her...
A medieval Jewish legend tells of a king of Poland who fell under the influence of a sorcerer — a wizard — and issued a decree: the Jews of his kingdom must convert, be...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:11) continues the image. "Now because thou hast killed him, thou art cursed from the earth, which hath opened the mouth, and received the blood...
Cain's response to the curse, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:14), includes a nuance the Hebrew does not spell out. "Behold, Thou hast cast me forth today from the face of ...
What was the "mark of Cain"? The Torah only says God placed a sign on him so no one would kill him. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:15) tells us what the sign was. "The Lord s...
The Torah says Cain went to dwell in "the land of Nod." Nod in Hebrew means "wandering," and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:16) translates it plainly: "the land of the wander...
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 journey that will become the spine of the Hebrew Bible begins not with Abram but with his father. In (Genesis 11:31) Terah takes his son, his grandson Lot, and his daughter-in-...
The most famous call in the Hebrew Bible lands on Abram's ear as a single imperative in (Genesis 12:1): Go forth. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan slows the verse down and makes you feel eac...
The first place Abram stops in the land of promise is Shechem. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 12:6) preserves a sobering detail that the Hebrew Bible states simply and the Targ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 12:11) offers one of the most quietly astonishing readings in the entire Aramaic paraphrase tradition. It explains how Abram can suddenly, after ...
The plain verse in (Genesis 12:12) is a husband's anxious calculation: when the Egyptians see thee, they will say, This is his wife, and they will kill me, and thee they will keep ...
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...
As the sun dipped low over the divided animals, a tardemah fell on Abraham — a deep, prophetic sleep. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:12) uses that sleep to show him the whol...
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...
Alongside the everlasting covenant comes an everlasting land. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 17:8) sets the promise out cleanly: the land of Abraham's habitation — all of Canaa...
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 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...
The blessing Isaac gives Esau, as the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records it, is a warning and a prophecy woven together. "Upon thy sword shalt thou depend, entering at every place: yet...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 28:15) renders a line that changes how you read Jacob's exile. God does not merely promise Jacob that He will be with him. God says: My Word ...
Jacob's vow at Bethel is, in the plain Torah text, a conditional prayer: if God keeps me and feeds me, then the Lord will be my God (Genesis 28:20–21). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan r...
When Leah named her firstborn Reuben, she said the Hebrew phrase ra'ah Adonai b'onyi — "the Lord has seen my affliction" (Genesis 29:32). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan hears the phras...
Leah's second son is Simeon, whose name comes from the Hebrew shama, "He heard" (Genesis 29:33). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan extends her words into another layer of prophecy. She na...
The second son born through Bilhah is named Naphtali, and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan hears in the name a principle of Jewish spiritual life. Rachel says: With affliction afflicted ...
Rachel finally bore a son. She named him Joseph, from the Hebrew asaph, "to gather away" (Genesis 30:23). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns her naming into a prophecy about a river ...
The moment Rahel gave birth to Joseph, something shifted in Jakob. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us that the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, settled upon him, and he looked ahead a...
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 closes its long list of Edomite chieftains with two final names: Magdiel and Iram. For most readers, they are just names. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 36:43) pauses...
The Torah says Jacob sent Joseph from the Valley of Hebron. The word valley — emek — also means depth. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 37:14) pounces on the double meaning. Jaco...
In the field outside Shechem, Joseph meets a man who tells him his brothers have moved on to Dothan. The Torah calls him simply a man. The sages identified him as the angel Gabriel...
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...
Genesis 38 opens with a strange, almost intrusive line: and Judah went down from his brothers. The Torah does not explain. The story of Joseph is unfolding dramatically, and sudden...
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 biblical text says only that Potiphar was furious and imprisoned Joseph. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us something remarkable the Hebrew leaves unstated. Joseph's master to...
The Targum closes the chapter with a line that the Sages read as the key to the whole Joseph narrative. It was not needful for the captain of the prison to watch Joseph, after the ...
This is one of the most daring glosses in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. The chief butler has told Joseph about a vine with three branches, ripening into grapes that he pressed into Phara...
The Targum gives the baker's dream two readings, the way it gave the butler's dream two readings. This is its interpretation. The three baskets are the three enslavements with whic...
The Targum opens chapter 41 with a subtle theological edit. The Hebrew says it was at the end of two years, and Pharaoh dreamed. Pseudo-Jonathan adds a single phrase that rearrange...
Joseph named his second son Ephraim, from the Hebrew root meaning to be fruitful, to increase. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 41:52) preserves Joseph's explanation with a remar...
The old man counted his losses aloud. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:36) preserves Jacob's lament word by word: "Of Joseph you said, An evil beast hath devoured him; of Sime...
Jacob draws the line. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 42:38) preserves his refusal: "My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he alone remains of his moth...
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...
