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The rabbis counted the ways a human being can leave this world. They arrived at nine hundred and three, derived from the verse, “Unto God the Lord belong the issues of death&...
When God commanded Aaron and his sons to kindle the lamps of the menorah in the Tabernacle, Aaron worried. The tribal princes were bringing their own magnificent dedication offerin...
A medieval Jewish legend tells of a king of Poland who fell under the influence of a sorcerer — a wizard — and issued a decree: the Jews of his kingdom must convert, be...
A military march in (Genesis 14:7) becomes, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, a moment of temporal vertigo. The verse says the kings returned to En-Mishpat, meaning the spring of judgment...
The closing line of Isaac's blessing, as the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it, reaches beyond Jacob and names two future figures by name. "Let them who curse thee, my son, be accu...
This is one of the most daring glosses in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. The chief butler has told Joseph about a vine with three branches, ripening into grapes that he pressed into Phara...
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...
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...
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...
Pharaoh woke up sweating. In his sleep he had seen a balance. On one pan, all the land of Mizraim — the pyramids, the treasuries, the Nile itself, the whole weight of an empire. On...
The Torah says Jokheved "hid him three months." The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (2:2) does the math. "And the woman conceived and bare a son at the end of six months; and she ...
Three months. That is how long a mother can pretend her baby does not cry. "But she could conceal him no longer, for the Mizraee had become aware of him. And she took an ark of pap...
Why was Pharaoh's daughter in the river that morning? The Hebrew says simply: "to bathe." The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (2:5) has a different answer — and it is startling. "...
The princess opens the basket. She does not find a quiet, sleeping infant. She finds a crying baby. "And she opened, and saw the child, and, behold, the babe wept; and she had comp...
"And the child grew, and was brought to Pharaoh's daughter, and he was beloved by her as a son; and she called his name Mosheh, Because, said she, I drew him out of the water of th...
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...
The blow did not come first. The vision did. "And Mosheh turned, and considered in the wisdom of his mind, and understood that in no generation would there arise a proselyte from t...
The Hebrew says only "two Hebrew men." The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (2:13) names them. "And he went out the second day, and looked; and, behold, Dathan and Abiram, men of t...
Dathan's answer is a dagger. "Who is he who hath appointed thee a chief man and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me, said he, as thou didst the Mizraite? And Mosheh was afraid, and ...
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 Phara...
The Hebrew text says "the angel of the Lord appeared." The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (3:2) gives that angel a name. "And Zagnugael, the angel of the Lord, appeared to him in...
"And when it was seen before the Lord that he turned to look, the Lord called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Mosheh, Mosheh! And he said, Behold me." The Targum Pseudo...
"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 He said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Izhak, and the God of Jakob. And Mosheh covered his face; for he was afraid to look upon the height of the ...
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...
"And Moses said before the Lord, Behold, I will go to the sons of Israel, and say to them, The Lord God of your fathers hath sent me to you: and they will say to me, What is His Na...
"And the Lord said unto Mosheh, He who spake, and the world was; who spake, and all things were. And He said, This thou shalt say to the sons of Israel, I AM HE WHO IS, AND WHO WIL...
"And the Lord said again unto Mosheh, Thus shalt thou speak to the sons of Israel: The God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Izhak, and the God of Jakob, hath sent me...
"Go, and assemble the elders of Israel, and say to them, The Lord God of your fathers hath appeared unto me, the God of Abraham, Izhak, and Jakob, saying, Remembering, I have remem...
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 ...
Before Moses ever steps into Pharaoh's throne room, God rehearses the scene with him in advance. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the expansive Aramaic paraphrase, preserves the staging: th...
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 ...
At the burning bush, the Holy One asks Moses to do something that violates every shepherd's instinct. The staff he has carried through decades in Midian has just become a serpent. ...
After Moses grasps the serpent by the tail and it becomes a rod, the Holy One explains the purpose of the miracle. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan puts it plainly: In order that they may be...
The second sign at the burning bush is more disturbing than the first. The serpent was outside Moses' body; the leprosy is on it. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the bluntness of ...
The mercy arrives as quickly as the warning. The Holy One says to Moses: Return thy hand into thy bosom — Aitaph in the Aramaic — and when Moses withdraws it, it had become clean a...
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 ...
Even after three signs, Moses refuses. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the protest with a phrase more vivid than the Hebrew: Moses is of a staggering mouth and staggering speech —...
The Holy One answers Moses' protest about his lame speech with a question that has echoed through three thousand years of Jewish reflection. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it with ...
Four refusals in, the Holy One's patience runs out. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the flash: the anger of the Lord was kindled against Mosheh. This is unusual. The Torah rarely ...
Once Aaron is appointed the spokesman, the Holy One explains how the chain of communication will actually work. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the threefold structure: thou shalt...
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...
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...
Here is one of the most extraordinary expansions in all of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. The biblical Hebrew says only that Moses took the rod of God in his hand. The Aramaic adds a cosm...
On the road to Egypt, the Holy One issues a warning that has troubled readers for two millennia. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan softens the Hebrew's I will harden his heart into something ...
On the road to Egypt, one of the strangest scenes in the Torah unfolds. The Hebrew is terse to the point of confusion: the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Targum Pseudo-Jonath...
After the terror at the inn, the reunion at Sinai feels like exhale. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the geography with reverent precision: Aaron came and met him at the mountain ...
