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Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri taught that the priesthood did not begin with Aaron. It began with Noah's son. "The Holy One, blessed be He," the Rabbi said, "set aside Shem, separating hi...
The rabbis of Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer chapter 48 imagined the hand of God as a kind of cosmic instrument, each finger doing its own piece of sacred work. With the little finger, th...
When Noah released a bird to test whether the floodwaters had receded, the Torah tells us he sent out a raven (Genesis 8:7). The midrash on this verse imagines an argument breaking...
When the waters of the flood began to rise and every living thing scrambled toward the ark, a strange creature came to Noah's gate — the Lie. The Lie asked to be admitted. Noah loo...
Gaster's Exempla of the Rabbis (1924), preserved from the Ma'aseh Book, tells a courtroom tale set in the court of Alexander. The people of Afriki — the descendants of Canaan who h...
After the flood, Noah broke fresh ground for a vineyard. He had tasted the grape and prized it twice — for its fruit and for its juice. As he worked, Ha-Satan — the heavenly Accuse...
The rabbis preserved a strange little tradition about how Og, the giant king of Bashan, survived the Flood. The Torah never explains it. Og appears later, towering over the Israeli...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 5:29) preserves the folk etymology of Noah's name. Lamech calls his son "Noach," which the Targum glosses as "Consolation," saying: "This shall c...
The Torah's "his days shall be 120 years" gets a full theological frame in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:3). God speaks by His Word: "All the generations of the wicked which...
The Torah calls Noah "a righteous man, perfect in his generations." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:9) tightens the description: "Noah was a just man, complete in good works i...
The verdict lands, and it lands on Noah's ear first. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:13) gives us the direct speech: "The end of all flesh cometh before Me, because the earth ...
The Torah gives Noah minimal construction specs. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:14) hands him a blueprint. "Make thee an ark of the wood of cedars; a hundred and fifty cells ...
The Torah says to set a "tzohar" in the ark — a mysterious word usually translated "window" or "light." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:16) tells us Noah had to fetch it. "Go ...
The Flood is named. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:17) renders it: "I, behold, I bring a flood of waters upon the earth to swallow up all flesh which hath in it the spirit of...
How did every species find the ark? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:20) gives an answer the Torah does not. "Of the fowl after its kind, and of all cattle after its kind, and ...
Even at the last possible moment, the door of repentance stays open. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:4) has God tell Noah: "Behold, I give you space of seven days; if they wil...
Before the first drop of the Flood struck the earth, heaven waited. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:10) teaches that the Holy One delayed the deluge for seven full days after ...
The Flood did not arrive gently. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:11) dates it with astonishing precision: the six-hundredth year of Noah's life, the second month, the seventee...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:13) narrows the entire human story down to a single doorway. On the day the Flood began, eight people walked through it — Noah, his three sons ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:14) does what Torah often does at its most sublime moments — it lists. Every wild animal after its kind. Every domestic beast after its kind. E...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:16) adds a single detail to the biblical verse that changes the entire picture. The creatures entered, male and female, of all flesh, just as t...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:23) ends the Flood with six words the reader will never forget: Noah only was left, and they who were with him in the ark. The Targum has just ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:1) turns the tide of the story with a phrase the Hebrew does not quite say. And the Lord in His Word remembered Noah, and then — listen careful...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:4) plants the ark on a very specific patch of earth. In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day, in the month the Targum calls Nisan, the gre...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:5) tracks the waters like a patient sailor counting days. The Aramaic says that the waters went and diminished until the tenth month, the month...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:9) tells one of the most delicate scenes in all of Torah. Noah sends out a dove, a yonah, to see whether the earth is ready. The Targum says sh...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:11) takes a verse every child knows and slips a piece of mystical geography into it. The dove returns at evening. She carries a fresh-plucked o...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:13) dates Noah's first real look at the new earth with the kind of precision the Aramaic loves. It was the six hundred and first year of Noah's...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:17) gives Noah his first instruction on the new earth, and it is almost identical to the instruction the Holy One gave Adam in Eden. Bring fort...
This is one of those verses where Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:20) opens a hidden corridor through the whole Torah. The Hebrew simply says Noah built an altar. The Aramaic ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:21) preserves one of the gentlest and most realistic sentences the Holy One ever speaks. After Noah's sacrifice, the Lord said in His Word, I w...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:22) anchors the new covenant in something every farmer and every child understands. Sowing in the season of Tishri, and harvest in the season o...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:2) marks a sharp change in the relationship between humanity and every other living thing. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon e...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:4) delivers one of the oldest and most surprising laws in Torah. Flesh which is torn of the living beast, what time the life is in it, or that ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:5) extends the reach of divine justice to places human courts cannot follow. The blood of your lives I will require of every animal which hath ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:10) widens the covenant after the Flood to include every creature, without exception. With every living soul that is with you, of birds, and of...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:11) delivers the promise every frightened heart has clung to since Noah stepped off the ark. I will establish my covenant with you, and will no...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:12) introduces the idea of a sign — an ot — that will anchor the covenant through all time. This is the sign of the covenant which I establish ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:14) explains the rainbow with a detail the plain Hebrew does not supply. When I spread forth My glorious cloud over the earth, the bow shall be...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:15) is a verse that has carried comfort through every Jewish generation. I will remember My covenant which is between My Word and between you a...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:16) sharpens the promise one more time. The bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between th...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:17) closes the rainbow passage with a final seal. Noah is told face to face: This is the sign of the covenant that I have covenanted between My...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:20) is one of the most dreamlike details in the whole Flood cycle. Noah began to be a man working in the earth. And he found a vine which the r...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:23) captures one of the quiet, careful acts of love in Torah. After Noah has fallen asleep in the shame of the wine, Shem and Japhet took a man...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:24) adds a detail that quietly reshapes the whole story. The biblical Hebrew simply says Noah awoke and knew what his younger son had done to h...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:27) turns a brief blessing into a vision of the whole future of learning. The Lord shall beautify the borders of Japhet, and his sons shall be ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 10:2) does something the plain biblical list never does — it gives the sons of Japheth their addresses. Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, a...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 10:7) lists the sons of Kush, the son of Cham, and then spins out a gazetteer the Hebrew does not provide. Seba, and Havilah, and Sabta, and Raam...
