5,700 texts · Page 81 of 119
The plain verse of (Genesis 46:20) simply records that Joseph married Asenath, daughter of Potiphera priest of On, and had two sons — Menasheh and Ephraim. The Targum Pseudo-Jonath...
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...
It is one of the shortest verses of Jacob's farewell, and one of the most surprising. Jacob, the quiet dweller in tents, claims a city by right of conquest. "I have given to thee t...
Gad chose land east of the Jordan. The Hebrew blessing in (Genesis 49:19) puns on the name — gad sounds like gedud, a raiding band. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan expands the pun into a ba...
When the blessings were finished, Jacob turned to the practical. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records his request with the gravity of a last will. "I am to be gathered to my people; bury...
Jacob names the burial site with the precision of a deed. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the legal language. "In the cave that is in the Double Field over against Mamre in the la...
When Pharaoh granted Joseph's request, a procession formed that had no precedent in Hebrew history. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records it plainly. "And Joseph went up to bury his fathe...
When the Canaanite natives saw the Egyptian-Israelite procession mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they did something startling. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records it. "They loo...
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...
"And He said, Approach not hither, take the shoe from thy feet, for the place on which thou standest is a holy place; and upon it thou art to receive the Law, to teach it to the so...
"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...
Moses has asked for a sign. God gives him a sign stranger than any wonder. "But He said, Therefore My Memra shall be for thy help; and this shall be the sign to thee that I have se...
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 ...
The fifth and deepest verb of redemption arrives in the next verse. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it with covenantal precision: I will bring you nigh before Me to be a people, a...
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...
With the fourth plague, God introduces a distinction that will repeat for the remaining plagues: that day in the land of Goshen where My people dwell, there no swarms of wild beast...
The distinction is now locked in. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:4): the Lord will work wonders between the flocks of Israel and the flocks of the Mizraee, that not any of tho...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:5) lists the peoples whose land is being promised: the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites. The Aramaic keeps the old Torah ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:9) pictures a scene the Hebrew leaves blank. While Pharaoh's chariots thunder toward them, what is Israel doing? The Targum says they are g...
The Song of the Sea reaches its highest note with a question: Who is like Thee among the exalted gods, O Lord, who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing won...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 15:13) translates the end of the Song of the Sea not as a geographical promise but as a spiritual homecoming: Thou hast led in Thy mercy the peopl...
The Song of the Sea contains a strange prayer. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it: Through the power of Thy mighty arm, let the terrors of death fall upon them, let them be silent a...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 15:27) reads the stopover at Elim as a map of Israel's constitution: And they came to Elim; and in Elim were twelve fountains of water, a fountain...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:35) adds a detail that answers a question most readers do not think to ask: when exactly did the manna stop falling? The Targum says: And the c...
When the people cried out for water at Rephidim, Moses did not simply strike any rock. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan insists on a precise geography: God said, "Behold, I will stand be...
After the Amalek battle, Moses built an altar — but the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the name he carved into it with surprising precision: "The Word of the Lord is my banner; f...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan marks the arrival at Sinai with three extraordinary words: "They had journeyed from Rephidim, and had come to the desert of Sinai, and Israel encamped th...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the conditional terms of Israel's unique standing: "Now, if you will truly hearken to My Word and keep My covenant, you shall be more beloved b...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the terrifying perimeter drawn around the mountain: "Thou shalt set limits for the people that they may stand round about the mountain, and shalt...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan intensifies the penalty for trespass at Sinai: "Touch it not with the hand; for he will be stoned with hailstone, or be pierced with arrows of fire; whet...
The mountain trembled because God Himself had come down upon it. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders the moment with startling directness: the Lord revealed Himself on Mount Sinai, ...
Before the Ten Words were spoken, Moses did something remarkable — he spoke back to God. "The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai," he said, "because You Yourself instructed us, s...
God's instruction to Moses at Sinai comes with a precise choreography. "Go down, and then ascend, thou and Aaron with thee; but let not the priests or the people directly come up t...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives the simple altar law a mystical interior. "An altar of earth ye shall make to My Name, and sacrifice upon it thy burnt offerings and thy sanctified...
Six years you plow. Six years you harvest. Six years you measure the field by what it produces for you. Then the seventh year arrives — and the ledger flips. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:16) names two festivals without naming them by their later names: the feast of the harvest first-fruits of the work thou didst sow in th...
This single verse holds two of the most important laws in Jewish life — and the Targum layers them tightly together. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:19) says: The first...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:22) makes a promise that sounds almost like a battle cry: if thou wilt indeed hearken to His Word, and do all that I speak by Him, I wil...
When Israel enters the Land, the Torah expects a specific kind of work — not only settlement, but demolition. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:24) commands: Thou shalt n...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:25) gives a promise that ties worship to health: you shall do service before the Lord our God and He will bless the provision of thy foo...
Before a single Israelite sword is drawn in the Land, God goes ahead. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:27) says: My terror will I send before thee, and will perturb all ...
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 (...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:31) maps Israel's inheritance: I will set thy boundary from the sea of Suph, to the sea of the Philistaee, and from the desert unto the ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:33) gives a final warning before the conquest: Thou shalt not let them dwell in thy land, lest they cause thee to err, and to sin before...
(Exodus 26:28) describes an engineering detail. A middle bar, passing through the boards of the Tabernacle from end to end, holding the walls together. Plain Hebrew gives the speci...
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...
Moses's final argument turned to the deepest court of appeal in the Jewish tradition: the merit of the avot, the patriarchs. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it precisely: "Remembe...
When Moses saw the camp dancing around the calf, the Torah says he saw that "the people were naked." What kind of nakedness? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the T...
