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The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 11:3) notes a transformation that had happened gradually, almost without anyone noticing. "The Lord gave the people favour before the Mizraee;...
Moses almost never loses his temper in the written text, but on this night he does. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 11:8) describes him warning Pharaoh that the day is coming whe...
Few verses in the Hebrew Bible have troubled readers as much as the one that says God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 11:10) offers a subtle reading: th...
Most translations of (Exodus 12:21) render Moses's words to the elders as a simple instruction: go and take a lamb. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan sharpens it into a rebuke. "Withdraw your...
Some of the geographic details in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan are staggering. On (Exodus 12:31), the Targum pauses to describe the map. The border of Mizraim extended four hundred phars...
The final hour of the Egyptian captivity is captured in a sentence of panic. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:33) describes how Moses, Aaron, and the sons of Israel heard Phara...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:3) records the speech Moses gave on the morning after the Exodus. The Aramaic phrase from the house of the bondage of slaves stacks up two word...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:15) gives the father's answer when the son keeps asking. Why the firstborn? Because of one night. "When the Word of the Lord had hardened t...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:19) tells a story the Hebrew only hints at. Moses, on the night Israel leaves Egypt, is not packing or leading. He is recovering a body. Jo...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:21) watches a miracle change its posture. By day the "glory of the Shekinah of the Lord" went before Israel in a column of cloud to lead th...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:2) turns a navigational instruction into a theological ambush. God tells Israel to turn around and camp before the "Mouths of Hiratha"—gapi...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:7) notices a strange detail in the chariot count. Pharaoh assembles six hundred choice chariots, plus all the chariots of his servants. But...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:10) splits the scene at the Sea of Reeds into two simultaneous acts of worship. Behind Israel, Pharaoh has arrived at the camp and sees the...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:11) does not soften Israel's complaint. It sharpens it, and it names the complainers. They are not "the people." They are "the wicked gener...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:12) remembers an earlier argument. "Was not this the word that we spake to thee in Mizraim?" The Hebrews had told Moses in Egypt, back when...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:13) breaks Israel into four factions at the edge of the sea. Not "the people" united, but four parties, each with its own plan. The first s...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:14) finishes the fourfold answer from the verse before. Two parties still need their reply: the fighters and the screamers. To the company ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:15) catches a surprising reprimand. Moses is standing on the shore praying. God interrupts him: "Why standest thou praying before Me?" It i...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:19) watches a careful choreography. The Angel of the Lord, who had been leading Israel from the front, suddenly moves. He goes behind them....
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:21) loads Moses's staff with cosmic freight. This is not a shepherd's walking stick. It is the great and glorious rod which was created at ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:22) gives the sea-splitting a measurement. The Torah says the waters were "a wall on their right and on their left." The Targum specifies: ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:27) adds a disturbing line to the drowning. Moses stretches his hand, the sea returns at morning, the Mizraee flee from the oncoming waves—...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:31) records the moment Israel becomes a nation of faith. They have just watched the mightiest army in the world drown. Now they "feared bef...
When Israel stood dripping on the far shore of the Yam Suph, the Sea of Reeds, they sang of a hand. Not a sword, not an army, not even an angel. A hand. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (an ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 15:9) lets us hear Pharaoh speak. Not in narration, not in summary. In his own voice, crowing on the far shore before the waters closed. The Targu...
When the people grumbled for bread, Moses's reply, as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it, is a lesson in chain-of-command theology: By this you shall know, when the Lord prepareth y...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:20) names names. The Hebrew only tells us that "some of them" kept manna overnight against Moses's word. The Targum identifies the culprits: Bu...
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 again cried for water, the Holy One's instruction to Moses, as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders (Exodus 17:5), is quietly pointed: Pass over before the people, and ta...
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...
Some places carry the scar of what happened there in their very name. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan explains that Moses called the site of the water-crisis "Temptation and Strife" — i...
When Amalek attacked, Moses turned to Joshua with instructions that reveal what kind of army Israel would fight with. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the order: "Choose such men...
The plain Hebrew of (Exodus 17:11) says Moses lifted his hands, and when he did, Israel prevailed. What were the raised hands actually doing? The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan leaves no r...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills in what the Hebrew leaves implicit: why Moses's hands grew heavy. "The hands of Moses were heavy, because the conflict was prolonged till the morro...
After the battle ended, God gave Moses a strange commandment: not to celebrate, but to write. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads it this way: "Write this memorial in the book of the ...
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...
News travels, but rarely does it move a prince of Midian to action. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the turning point: "And Jethro, prince of Midian, the father-in-law of Moses,...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan locates Jethro's arrival at Israel's camp with unusual precision: "Jethro the father-in-law of Moses, and the sons of Moses, and his wife came to Moses a...
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 stages Moses's greeting of Jethro with cinematic care: "Moses came forth from under the cloud of glory to meet his father-in-law, and did obeisance, and ...
When family reunites, the first thing out of the mouth is usually the story of what was survived. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records Moses's account to Jethro in condensed form: "M...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the moment Jethro's role changed from guest to advisor: "The father-in-law of Moses saw how much he toiled and laboured for his people; and he sa...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves Moses's answer to Jethro's probing question: "When they have a matter for judgment, they come to me, and I judge between a man and his fellow, ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan sharpens Jethro's warning with a realism the plain text softens: "Thou wilt verily wear thyself away. Aaron also, and his sons, and the elders of thy peo...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves Jethro's opening directive with a nuance the Hebrew leaves quieter: "Now hearken to me and I will advise thee; and may the Word of the Lord be ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the triage principle Jethro proposed: "Let them judge the people at all times, and every great matter bring to thee, but every little thing let...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan closes Jethro's advice with a striking promise: "If thou wilt do this, and exempt thyself from judging (every case) as the Lord shall give thee instructi...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan spells out the staggering arithmetic of Moses's judicial reform: "Moses selected able men from all Israel, and appointed them chief over the people — rab...
