141 texts · Page 3 of 3
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 not ...
After the consent comes the unpacking. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 24:53 describes Eliezer bringing out vessels of silver, vessels of gold, and vestments, which he gave to Ri...
The mother and brother gather around Rivekah on the morning she is to leave, and they speak a blessing that the Jewish people have been whispering over their daughters ever since. ...
Rebekah sees him before he sees her. From the back of her camel she looks across the field and asks the servant, "Who is the man, so majestic and graceful, who walks in the field b...
This is the verse the Maggid saves for last — the one where grief and joy shake hands. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 24:67 describes what happened when Isaac brought Rebekah in...
Here is a verse that looks like an accounting entry until you notice what the numbers are doing. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 25:20 records that Isaac was forty years old when...
The pattern returns. Pseudo-Jonathan knows it, and expects us to know it too. Abraham had done this twice — in Egypt and in Gerar — saying of Sarah, she is my sister, because he fe...
The Torah uses a small, shimmering verb for what Isaac and Rebekah are doing when the king of Gerar catches sight of them. "Izhak was disporting with Rivekah his wife" (Genesis 26:...
There is no anger in Abimelech's voice, but there is pain. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the king calling Isaac and saying, "Nevertheless she is thy wife. Why hast thou said, ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives us Rebekah's final argument to Isaac, and it is pointed. "I am afflicted in my life on account of the indignity of the daughters of Heth. If Jakob ...
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...
Esau was watching. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 28:6 lingers on what he noticed: not only that Isaac blessed Jacob, but that Isaac sent Jacob to Padan Aram with a very spe...
When the warning finally reached Esau — do not marry a Canaanite — he did what a man who has already lost tries to do. He went sideways to find a wife who might count.The Targum Ps...
When Jacob arrived in Haran after his kefitzat ha-derekh — the folding of the road — he came to a well in a field (Genesis 29:2). Three flocks of sheep lay beside it, and a great s...
Rachel arrives at the well with her father's sheep, and the Torah calls her ro'ah — a shepherdess (Genesis 29:9). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan stops to explain why the daughter of a ...
The Torah says Jacob rolled the stone from the well, watered the flock, and kissed Rachel (Genesis 29:10–11). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns the well itself into a character.Jaco...
The Torah tells us Jacob told Rachel he was her kinsman (Genesis 29:12). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills in a conversation between them.Jacob explained to Rachel that he had come ...
The Torah calls Leah's eyes rakkot — tender, soft, weak (Genesis 29:17). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reframes the entire verse. Her eyes were moist from weeping and praying before t...
The wedding in Haran was not a simple celebration. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 29:22 reconstructs the conversation Laban had with the men of the town.Laban gathered all t...
The morning after the wedding, Jacob discovered that the bride under the veil had been Leah, not Rachel (Genesis 29:25). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan explains how the deception had b...
The Torah says the Lord saw that Leah was hated and opened her womb, and Rachel was barren (Genesis 29:31). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan softens and sharpens the verse in the same br...
Leah had four sons. Rachel had none. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 30:1 preserves the raw edge of her suffering.Rachel was envious of her sister. The Aramaic does not hide ...
The Torah says Jacob's anger burned against Rachel (Genesis 30:2). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan keeps the heat of the verb. The anger of Jakob was strong against Rahel.Why was he ang...
The Torah says Reuben went out in the days of the wheat harvest and found dudaim, mandrakes, in the field (Genesis 30:14). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan specifies the month: Sivan, th...
The exchange between Leah and Rachel over the mandrakes is one of the rawest sibling arguments in Genesis. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the Aramaic bite.Is it a little thin...
A small Targumic detail in Genesis 30:16 captures how Leah knew her husband had returned from the fields.She heard the voice of the braying of the ass. Jacob's donkey. Leah recogni...
He called Rahel and Leah out to the field — away from Laban's tents, away from the household's ears — and spoke plainly. I consider the looks of your father, and, behold, they are ...
Laban went tent by tent. First Jakob's, then Leah's, then the tents of the two concubines. Nothing. And he went out from the tent of Leah, and entered the tent of Rahel (Genesis 31...
The treaty had one more clause. Laban said to Jakob, If thou shalt afflict my daughters, doing them injury, and if thou take upon my daughters, there is no man to judge us, the Wor...
The Torah says Er, Judah's firstborn, was evil in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord slew him. Readers have wondered for centuries: evil in what way? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Gen...
When Er died, the custom of yibbum — levirate marriage — required his brother Onan to marry Tamar and father a child who would legally carry Er's name and inherit Er's portion. The...
After losing two sons, Judah faced a choice. The custom required his third and last surviving son, Shelah, to marry Tamar and try to raise up the line. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (G...
The Torah says Pharaoh gave Joseph a wife named Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 41:45 stops the reader short with a different claim:...
The verse is simple, but the timing is everything. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 41:50 reports that Joseph fathered two sons "before the year of famine arose," born to Asenath,...
At Joseph's table the platters move in a strange rhythm. Every brother receives a portion. Then Benjamin receives five.Targum Pseudo-Jonathan accounts for the arithmetic. "Benjamin...
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 who the two boys standing beside him were (Genesis 48:9), the question was not about identity. Jacob was old and nearly blind, but he recognized his grandso...
The Torah tells the Midian episode in a sentence. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (2:21) tells it in a small novel."But when Reuel knew that Mosheh had fled from before P...
Before Moses can begin the Exodus, he has to say goodbye to the family that took him in. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the scene's restraint. Moses does not march out. He return...
The scene is brief, bloody, and extraordinary. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it with theological clarity: Zipporah took a stone, and circumcised the foreskin of Gershom her son,...
Few lines in the Torah are as unexpectedly tender as the one the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves at the moment of Jethro's arrival. He sends a message to Moses: "I, thy father-in-...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records one of the most dramatic images in all of rabbinic tradition: "Moses brought forth the people from the camp to meet the glorious Presence of the ...
Among the harder laws of Exodus is the case of the amah ivriyah — the young Hebrew maidservant. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives the verse its full protective force. "If these thre...
A young woman has been seduced. Her future, by the standards of the ancient world, has been altered against her will — and often against her knowledge of what was being taken. What...
Of all the objects in the Tabernacle, the brass laver had the strangest origin. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 38:8 preserves the story: it was made from the brasen mirrors of th...
