1,432 texts · Page 21 of 30
Having named the sin, Joseph reframes it. He does not deny it. He places it inside a larger story. "It was not you who sent me hither, but it was from before the Lord that the thin...
Joseph has reconciled with his brothers. Now he needs them to deliver a message — quickly. "Make haste, and go up to my father, and say to him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, The Lord ...
The kisses Joseph gives his brothers are not only affection. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan's reading, they are grief in advance. "And he kissed all his brethren, and wept over them, be...
When the news reaches the palace, Pharaoh is delighted — and the Targum hears the reason under the delight. "A voice was heard in the royal house of Pharaoh, saying, The brothers o...
Pharaoh sends his own invitation. "Take your father and the men of your house, and come to me, and I will give you the best of what is desirable in the land of Mizraim, and you sha...
Jacob pauses at Be'er Sheva on his way to Egypt. He offers sacrifices. He waits. He listens. And the Holy One speaks to him in a night vision. "He said, I am God, the God of thy fa...
The Holy One makes Jacob a promise so intimate that the Targum cannot bear to phrase it as mere accompaniment. It phrases it as presence. "I am He who in My Word will go down with ...
The caravan forms at dawn. An old man. His sons. His grandchildren. His daughters-in-law. Seventy souls in all, according to the count the Torah gives us later (Genesis 46:27). "Ja...
Read (Genesis 46:21) in a plain chumash and it looks like a list: Bela, Beker, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Chuppim, Ard — ten sons of Benjamin. But the Targum Pseudo-J...
The Torah counts seventy souls of Jacob's house entering Egypt. Do the math in (Genesis 46:27) and you find sixty-nine. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan closes the gap with one of the st...
When Jacob finally set out to reunite with Joseph, he sent Judah on ahead. The Torah says only that Judah was to "show the way before him to Goshen" (Genesis 46:28). The Targum Pse...
Before the family of Jacob was even presented to Pharaoh, Joseph coached his brothers on what to say. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 46:34) records his instruction: say you...
The meeting between Pharaoh and Joseph's brothers was over quickly. In (Genesis 47:6) Pharaoh gave them Goshen, as expected — but the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan lingers on the second h...
The Torah says plainly in (Genesis 47:7) that Jacob "blessed Pharaoh." It does not tell us what the blessing was. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan supplies the words: "May it please the ...
Pharaoh asked Jacob his age, and Jacob's answer in (Genesis 47:9) is one of the rawest sentences in Torah. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it with all its weight: "The days of t...
The Torah states, almost in passing, that Joseph "removed the people to cities from one end of the border of Egypt to the other" (Genesis 47:21). Why? The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gi...
The Torah sums up the family's first years in Egypt in a single line: "And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen, and they had possessions therein, and grew a...
When Jacob finally addressed the question of Joseph's two sons in (Genesis 48:5), he did something startling. He said: "Ephraim and Menasheh, as Reuben and Shimon shall be reckoned...
In (Genesis 48:7), as he prepares to bless his grandsons, Jacob breaks off to explain to Joseph something that has haunted the family for decades. "Rachel died by me suddenly in th...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records a small, telling detail about the funeral caravan. "And all the men of Joseph's house, and his brethren, and his father's household: only their child...
The Torah records a small family scene: "And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation; also the sons of Makir the son of Menasheh were born on Joseph's knees" (Genesis...
Joseph is dying. He gathers his brothers — what is left of them — around the bed and speaks words that will hover over the next four hundred years like a lamp burning in a long cor...
There will be false redeemers. Joseph knows this. Before he closes his eyes, he hands his children a test. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis (50:25) expands his oath dramatical...
"And Joseph died, the son of a hundred and ten years. And they embalmed him with perfumes, and laid him in an ark, and submerged him in the midst of the Nilos of Mizraim." The Tora...
"Come, let us take counsel against them in these matters, to diminish them that they multiply not, so as that, should war be arrayed against us, they be not added to our adversarie...
The Torah names two cities: Pithom and Ra'amses. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (1:11) names two others: Tanis and Pelusium. "And they set over them work-masters to afflict t...
Pharaoh's whole policy had one aim — shrink the Hebrews. And this verse is the Targum's quiet demolition of the whole policy. "But as much as they depressed them, so much they mult...
"And they made their lives bitter by hard service in clay and bricks, and all the labour of the face of the field; and in all the work which they made them do was hardness." The Ta...
He had grown up in silk. Now he stepped out into the brick kilns. "And in those days when Mosheh was grown up, he went forth to his brethren, and saw the anguish of their souls, an...
Why did the cry of the Hebrews finally pierce heaven? Because Pharaoh had stopped being a tyrant and become a monster. "And it was after many of those days that the king of Mizraim...
Why did redemption come when it did, and not earlier? The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (2:25) has a startling answer. "And the Lord looked upon the affliction of the bondage of...
"And He said, The oppression of My people who are in Mizraim is verily manifest before Me, and heard before Me is their cry on account of them who hold them in bondage; for their a...
"And I have revealed Myself to thee this day, that by My Memra they may be delivered from the hand of the Mizraee, to bring them up out of the unclean land, unto a good land, and l...
"And now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel cometh up before Me, and the bruising of the Mizraee wherewith they bruise them is also revealed before Me." The Targum Pseudo-Jonat...
At the burning bush, the Holy One does not merely announce a rescue. He swears it. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase preserved alongside the Torah, renders the divine ...
Here is a difficult teaching: the Holy One tells Moses the outcome before the negotiation begins. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan puts it with unsettling clarity: it is manifest before Me t...
Before the first plague falls, God speaks in future tense. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders the warning with striking physicality: I have sent forth the stroke of My power, and have ...
The Torah's Hebrew tells the Israelite women to ask their Egyptian neighbors for silver, gold, and clothing before the Exodus. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds something unforgettable: ...
The third sign at the burning bush is the one that rehearses the first plague. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it with bare clarity: thou shalt take of the water of the river and ...
Back in Midian, the Holy One delivers a piece of news that unlocks the Exodus. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the phrasing with startling specificity: they have come to nought, a...
The first public assembly ends not in riot but in worship. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the triple movement: the people believed, and heard that the Lord had remembered the son...
Pharaoh's reply is one of the most arrogant utterances in the entire Torah. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan makes explicit what the Hebrew only implies: The name of the Lord is not made kno...
Pharaoh's response to the slaves' religious request is to tighten the screws. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the logic with cruel precision: the (same) number of bricks which the...
The cruelty has a chain of command. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the structure: the exactors whom Pharoh set over them as officers beat the sons of Israel, saying, Why have not...
The Israelite foremen march into Pharaoh's court and deliver one of the boldest complaints in the Torah. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders their protest with an expanded final clause:...
The foremen walk out of Pharaoh's court knowing they have lost. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the grim recognition: the foremen of the sons of Israel saw that they were in evil,...
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 answer to the foremen's despair comes from the Holy One, not from Moses. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the divine reassurance: Now have I seen what Pharoh hath done: for by ...
