5,036 texts · Page 63 of 105
The confrontation finally arrives. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the opening line with ceremonial weight: Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Release My people, that they ma...
When Pharaoh refuses, Moses and Aaron press the request with a telling clarification. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves their plea: The Name of the God of the Jehudaee is invoked by...
When the foremen finally confront Moses and Aaron, their rage is spectacular. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the accusation: Our affliction is manifest before the Lord, but our p...
The answer to the foremen's despair comes from the Holy One, not from Moses. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the divine reassurance: Now have I seen what Pharoh hath done: for by ...
The Holy One explains something astonishing to Moses. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the distinction between the revelations: I was revealed unto Abraham, and to Izhak, and to Ja...
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 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...
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...
After the slaves refuse to hear him, Moses turns to God with a new version of his old protest. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the logic: Behold, the sons of Israel do not hearken...
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 ...
The Torah gives Levi's lifespan as a hundred and thirty-seven years (Exodus 6:16), but Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a single clause that changes the entire feel of the verse. Levi, ...
The plain verse says only that Amram married Jokeved, fathered Aharon and Moses, and lived a hundred and thirty-seven years (Exodus 6:20). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 6:20) a...
When the Torah sums up who stood before Pharaoh to demand Israel's release, it simply says these are they (Exodus 6:27). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 6:27) supplies the titles...
The plain verse says God made Moses as a god to Pharaoh (Exodus 7:1). The phrase has rattled translators for two thousand years. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:1) handles ...
God tells Moses that Pharaoh will not listen, but that redemption will come anyway — by force. The Hebrew says God will lay His hand upon Egypt (Exodus 7:4). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan...
The moment arrives. Moses and Aharon enter Pharaoh's court, and Aharon throws down the rod. The Torah says it became a tannin, usually translated serpent or sea-monster (Exodus 7:1...
Why did Moses have to meet Pharaoh by the water at sunrise? The plain text only says that Pharaoh went out to the river (Exodus 7:15). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:15) tells...
When Moses delivers the demand at the Nile, the Hebrew has him speak in the name of the God of the Hebrews (Exodus 7:16). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:16) updates the phrase...
Moses stands at the water with the rod lifted, and God's words are simple and total: By this sign thou shalt know that I am the Lord (Exodus 7:17). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodu...
The first plague is about to reach past the river itself. God tells Aharon to stretch the rod over rivers, trenches, canals, and every place for collecting their waters (Exodus 8:1...
The order was given; now it is done. Aharon lifts the rod, strikes the Nile in full view of Pharaoh and his court, and the whole river turns (Exodus 7:20). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan o...
God commands Aharon to lift his rod and bring up the frogs upon the land of Mizraim (Exodus 8:1). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:1) echoes the Hebrew faithfully but it is the ...
Here is one of the most tender footnotes in all of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. Aharon lifts his hand, the frogs swarm up. And the meturgeman pauses to explain why it is Aharon, not Mos...
The frogs finally break him. For the first time, Pharaoh sends for Moses and Aharon and asks them to pray. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:4) preserves his exact bargaining pos...
Pharaoh has begged. Now Moses gives him an extraordinary gift: pick the hour. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:5) renders the offer with unmistakable dignity to Pharaoh's office...
The third plague is lice — venomous insects that emerge from the dust. Again Aharon must wield the rod, not Moses. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:12) gives the breathtaking re...
Before the fourth plague, God sends Moses back to the water. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:16) restages the old dawn scene: Arise in the morning, and stand before Pharoh: beh...
Pharaoh offers a compromise. Bring your sacrifices inside the land. Don't go anywhere. Moses's answer, as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:22) renders it, is a lesson in cultura...
Moses accepts the deal — warily. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:25) preserves the careful language: I will go forth from thee, and pray before the Lord to remove the swarm of ...
The prayer works. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:27) delivers the outcome with plain satisfaction: the Lord did according to the word of the prayer of Mosheh, and removed the ...
Plague five begins with the same message that opened the demands at the Nile. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:1): Thus saith the Lord, the God of the Jehudaee, Emancipate My pe...
Before the sixth plague breaks on Egypt, the Holy One gives Moses and Aaron a strange instruction. Not a rod to raise. Not a river to strike. Handfuls of fine ash from the kiln. "T...
It happened exactly as the Lord said. Moses and Aaron took the furnace ash in their hands, walked out to meet Pharaoh, and Moses flung the ash skyward. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan r...
Every earlier plague, Pharaoh's court magicians had something to say. They turned their rods to serpents. They conjured frogs. They strained against lice and failed. But when the s...
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...
"Uplift thy hand towards the height of the heavens," the Lord says to Moses (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:2)2), "and there shall be hail on all the land of Mizraim, upon men...
When Moses raised his rod, heaven answered with a miracle that defied nature itself. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 9:23) describes it: "Mosheh lifted up his rod toward the ...
Moses does not pray inside Pharaoh's palace. He does not pray inside the city at all. "When I have gone out from thee into the city," he tells the king, "I will outspread my hands ...
Moses and Aaron walked out of the palace, past the gates, into the suburb of the city. And there, in the open, Moses did exactly what he had promised. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on...
By the eighth plague, the Torah's language has shifted. Before, it was Pharaoh who hardened his own heart. Now, the Lord takes a share of the responsibility. "The Lord spake to Mos...
"They shall fill thy house, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of the Mizraee," the Lord declares through Moses, "(the like of) which neither thy fathers nor thy fo...
"(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" ...
"Lift up thy hand over the land of Mizraim for the locust, that he may come up over the land of Mizraim, and destroy every herb of the earth, whatsoever the hail hath left" (Targum...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 10:13) describes the delivery mechanism with quiet care. "Mosheh lifted up his rod over the land of Mizraim, and the Lord brought an east wind...
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...
Moses's answer to Pharaoh's last offer is one of the most famous lines in Exodus. "Our flocks, moreover, must go with us; not one hoof of them shall remain; for from them we are to...
Pharaoh's patience finally breaks. "Pharoh said to him, Go from me. Beware that thou add not to see my face to speak before me one of these words that are so hard: for in the day t...
Moses's reply to Pharaoh's death-threat is magnificently calm — and the Targum reveals why. "Thou hast spoken fairly. While I was dwelling in Midian, it was told me in a word from ...
