5,700 texts · Page 80 of 119
The plain verse in (Genesis 14:10) is a grim military note: the vale of Siddim was full of tar pits, and the fleeing kings of Sodom and Amorah fell into them. Targum Pseudo-Jonatha...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:15) turns Abram's night raid into a double operation with a prophetic shadow. The Aramaic says Abram divided his forces in the night: a part w...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:17) translates a forgotten geographical name into a vivid picture. The Hebrew Bible calls the location the Valley of Shaveh, which is the King...
Right after the terrifying vision of Gehinnom and the four kingdoms, the Lord sets a covenant. And Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:18) spells out the promise with an emphasis...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 16:3) marks the moment with a small, precise number: after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan holds onto that ten and ad...
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...
Dawn in the house of Abraham. Bread on a shoulder. A cruse of water tied to a woman's waist. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:14), the Aramaic paraphrase adds a detail the ...
A well in the Negev. Seven ewe lambs set apart. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:32), the Aramaic preserves the ancient name of the place — Beira de-Sheva, the Well of the ...
The voice from heaven does not soften what it is asking. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:2), each phrase lands heavier than the last: Take now thy son, thy only one whom t...
Stand where the Temple will stand and look down. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:9), the mountain beneath Abraham's feet is not virgin ground. It is the oldest altar in th...
When the ram has been offered and the knife has been set down, the blessing arrives. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:17), the Aramaic preserves the double Hebrew intensifi...
A wife does not greet her husband at the door. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:2), the Aramaic names what Abraham finds when he comes down from the mountain: Abraham came ...
The request is precise. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:9), Abraham names exactly what he wants: his double cave which is built in the side of his field, for the full pric...
Abraham has no interest in Ephron's performance. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:13), the patriarch addresses Ephron before the people of the land — the witnesses must hea...
The deal closes with a detail that tells you this verse was written by someone who knew markets. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:16), the Aramaic paraphrase describes the ...
The deed is recorded with the care of a surveyor. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:17), the Aramaic lists what Abraham now owns: the field, and the cave that is therein, an...
The command is unambiguous. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:3), Abraham makes Eliezer swear by the Word of the Lord God, whose habitation is in heaven on high, the God who...
Eliezer is a wise servant. He foresees a problem before he sets out. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:5), the Aramaic renders his careful question: suppose the woman may no...
The trip home was supposed to take weeks. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:61) says it took a day. "And as the way was shortened to him in his journey to Padan Aram, so was it...
The Torah closes its account of Ishmael's line with a map. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:18) names the borders: "they dwelt from Hindiki unto Chalutsa, which is in face of ...
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...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan catches Isaac mid-thought. "It had been in Izhak's heart to go down to Mizraim," it tells us (Genesis 26:2). The famine has struck. His father went down ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is careful with one phrase above all others — the Memra, the Word of God. Where the Hebrew simply says "I will be with thee and bless thee," the Aramaic ...
The covenant that God first made with Abraham under the night sky is spoken again — this time to Isaac. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it with the same thunderous promise. "I w...
When the Philistines try to erase Abraham's memory, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us what Isaac does. He digs. Again. "And Izhak digged again the wells of water which the servan...
Two wells dug, two wells contested. The third well, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us, was different. "For that they did not contend as formerly, and he called the name of it (Ra...
The verse is plain, and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan keeps it that way. "Arise, go to Padan of Aram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother's father, and take thee from thence a wife fro...
Before Jacob left Beersheba for Haran, Isaac did something that could not be undone. He transferred the blessing of Abraham — the promise of land, seed, and covenant — from father ...
The Torah says Jacob came upon a place and lay down because the sun had set (Genesis 28:11). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot read that verse without shouting. It was not just any...
In the Torah, God simply stands beside Jacob in the dream (Genesis 28:13). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adjusts the posture with surgical care. What Jacob saw was not God Himself but...
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 ...
When Jacob woke from his ladder-dream, he was shaken. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 28:17) spells out what exactly had shaken him. How dreadful and glorious is this place....
Jacob set a pillar and poured oil on it (Genesis 28:22). Then he made a promise about what that pillar would become. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan goes further than the plain verse. T...
Leah names the second son of her handmaid Zilpah Asher, from osher, "happiness" or "praise" (Genesis 30:13). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan translates the name into a prophecy about th...
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 voice in the dream named itself. I am Eloha who did reveal Myself to thee at Beth El where thou didst anoint the pillar, and swear the oath before Me (Genesis 31:13). Targum Ps...
Jakob crossed the Pherat and set his face for the mountain of Gilead. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives the reader a future-sight camera angle the plain text does not: Jakob saw, by the...
Jakob saw the encampment approaching and his first instinct was dread. These are not the host of Esau who are coming to meet me, nor the host of Laban, who have returned from pursu...
"Then Jacob came in peace with all that he had to the city of Shekem, in the land of Canaan, in his coming from Padan Aram; and he dwelt near the city." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Gen...
"Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there, and make there an altar unto Eloha, who revealed Himself to you in your flight from before Esau your brother." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Gene...
"We will arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make there an altar unto Eloha, who heard my prayer in the day when I was afflicted, and whose Memra was my helper in the way that I ...
"And he built there an altar, and named that place, To God, who made His Shekhinah to dwell in Bethel, because there had been revealed to him the angels of the Lord, in his flight ...
"And Deborah, the nurse of Rebecca, died, and was buried below Bethel, in the field of the plain. And there it was told Jacob concerning the death of Rebecca his mother; and he cal...
After burying Rachel on the road to Ephrath, Jacob kept walking. He pitched his tent in a quiet, unremarkable place — Migdal Eder, the Tower of the Flock, a shepherd's watchtower o...
The Torah says simply that Esau took his wives, his sons, his flocks, and moved to another land. It sounds like a practical decision — too many cattle, not enough grass. The verse ...
When Jacob finally yields, he does not send his sons empty-handed. He sends a basket of the land itself. "Take of the praiseworthy things of the land," he tells them, "and put them...
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...
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...
