1,432 texts · Page 22 of 30
God outlines the Exodus in a sequence of verbs that the sages will later count as the Arba Leshonot Shel Geulah — the Four Expressions of Redemption. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserv...
The Exodus closes the loop that began with Abraham. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the full covenantal claim: I will bring you into the land which I covenanted by My Word to give...
Moses returns to the slaves with the five expressions of redemption — and they do not hear him. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the heartbreak: Mosheh spake according to this to t...
The Holy One does not argue with Moses. He simply issues a new set of orders. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the dual commission: the Lord spake with Mosheh and with Aharon, and ...
In the middle of the Exodus narrative, the Torah pauses for a genealogy. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it with the ceremonial weight of a formal record: These are the heads of t...
After the boils, the Lord does not relent. He sends Moses back to the palace, and the command has not changed. "Arise in the morning, and place thyself before Pharoh, and say to hi...
It is one of the hardest verses in Exodus. Why didn't the Lord simply strike Pharaoh dead and free the slaves? The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:16), the Aramaic paraphrase p...
Pharaoh responds with a sarcasm that reveals his actual intention. "He said to them, So may the Word of the Lord be a help to you: (but) how can I release (both) you and your child...
"(It shall be) not so as ye devise; but the men only shall go and worship before the Lord; for that it was which ye demanded. And he drave them out from before the face of Pharoh" ...
After three days of darkness, Pharaoh calls Moses back. "Go, worship before the Lord; only your sheep and your oxen shall abide with me: your children also may go with you" (Targum...
Before the final plague falls, the Lord gives Israel an instruction that would change the entire theology of the Exodus. "Speak now in the hearing of the people, That every man sha...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 11:5) announces the tenth plague in language that is almost merciless in its precision. "Every firstborn in the land of Mizraim shall die: fro...
There is a grief so total it sets a boundary in time. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 11:6) frames the final plague not only as a wound inflicted but as an unrepeatable event. Mi...
The strangest detail in the tenth plague is not what happens, but what does not. On the night when all of Mizraim wails, no dog in Israel so much as growls. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:30) describes Pharaoh rising in the night, and with him every one of his servants and every surviving Mizraee. The great cry goes up. And then ...
The final hour of the Egyptian captivity is captured in a sentence of panic. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:33) describes how Moses, Aaron, and the sons of Israel heard Phara...
One of the most tender details in the Exodus is hidden in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:34). As Israel fled Mizraim, the people carried their unleavened dough on their heads...
The first matzah was not baked in an oven. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:39) says that Israel divided the unleavened dough they had brought out of Mizraim — the same dough t...
One of the great numerical puzzles of the Torah is solved openly by Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:40). The Hebrew says Israel lived in Mizraim for four hundred thirty years....
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:41) continues the chronological reconstruction begun the verse before. Thirty years passed between the Covenant Between the Pieces and the birt...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:17) answers a question the Torah only gestures at. Why did God not send Israel by the short coastal road through the land of the Philistine...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:21) watches a miracle change its posture. By day the "glory of the Shekinah of the Lord" went before Israel in a column of cloud to lead th...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:3) drops two shocking names into the Egyptian court. Pharaoh needs intelligence on the escaping Hebrews. Who gives it to him? Dathan and Ab...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:11) does not soften Israel's complaint. It sharpens it, and it names the complainers. They are not "the people." They are "the wicked gener...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:12) remembers an earlier argument. "Was not this the word that we spake to thee in Mizraim?" The Hebrews had told Moses in Egypt, back when...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:28) closes the account of the Egyptian army with a single unforgiving sentence. "The waves of the sea returned, and covered the chariots, a...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:30) adds two uncanny words to the aftermath. Israel, safe on the far shore, looks back and sees the Mizraee—dead and not dead—cast upon the...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 15:22) slips in a phrase that seems geographical but is actually theological: they journeyed three days in the desert, empty of instruction, and f...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:32) gives us one of the great commandments of Israel's memory: a jar of manna, set aside and preserved, so that later, less fortunate generatio...
There is a kind of cruelty that is not visible in the moment. It lives in a tone of voice. A dismissive glance. A pressing of advantage against someone who has no one to defend him...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:15) sets the pilgrimage: The feast of unleavened cakes thou shalt keep. Seven days thou art to eat unleavened bread, as I have instructe...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:18) gives the Pesach offering a particular constraint: Sons of Israel My people, while there is leaven in your houses you may not immola...
The promise is stunning and, at first, confusing. God has committed to dispossess the Canaanite nations before Israel. Why not do it all at once? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (...
When Nadab and Abihu lifted their eyes at Sinai and beheld the glory of the God of Israel, they saw something no prophet had described before. Beneath the divine throne, serving as...
The Torah closes the Tabernacle construction chapters with a quiet command. In the Tent of Meeting, outside the parochet that conceals the Ark, Aharon and his sons are to tend a la...
The climax of the consecration chapter is not a ritual instruction. It is a declaration, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives it a weight the plain Hebrew only hints at: the sons of Is...
The day Aaron had hoped to delay arrived. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan describes it in language that is more revealing than the Hebrew's euphemism: "they arose, and sacrificed burnt-offe...
The timeline is what makes the sin unbearable. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves God's charge with its full sting: "Quickly have they declined from the way which I taught them in Si...
After the calf, God makes an announcement that is almost worse than punishment. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, preserves the full weight of the line. ...
When the people heard that the Shekhinah would not travel with them, they mourned. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, tells us what they took off to mourn...
The divine command to remove the Sinai ornaments came with a startling explanation. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, gives the measure in a single chill...
After hearing the Thirteen Attributes, Moses pressed his petition one more time. The words he spoke contain the deepest prayer of Jewish survival. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Arama...
God's answer to Moses contains one of the most mysterious promises in the entire Torah. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, reveals the secret hidden in th...
The renewed covenant included a reminder of the annual rhythm that would shape Jewish life forever. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, preserves the comma...
The fourth and final row of the breastplate, according to Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 39:13), held chrysolite, onyx, and jasper. Engraved upon them were the names of Zebulun,...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:10) takes the consecration of the altar of burnt offering and turns it into a prophecy. Anoint the altar, the meturgeman says, on account of th...
The closing verse of the book of Exodus is, among other things, a promise for the road. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:38) describes what every Israelite could see the mornin...
Jewish tradition has some pretty amazing, awe-inspiring imagery about that very question. Imagine this: a God of pure, untamed power, riding not on a cloud, but on the very wings o...
