4,035 texts · Page 52 of 85
The Torah closes its account of Ishmael's line with a map. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:18) names the borders: "they dwelt from Hindiki unto Chalutsa, which is in face of ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, that wild Aramaic expansion of the Torah, hears something in Esau's words that the plain text only hints at. Esau does not just say, "Behold, I am at th...
The Torah's plain verse reads almost like an afterthought. "He ate and drank, and rose up and went his way; thus Esau despised his birthright" (Genesis 25:34). Five short verbs for...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan wants you to notice something the plain verse almost glosses over. This is not the first famine in Canaan. It is the second. "And there was a mighty fami...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan catches Isaac mid-thought. "It had been in Izhak's heart to go down to Mizraim," it tells us (Genesis 26:2). The famine has struck. His father went down ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is careful with one phrase above all others — the Memra, the Word of God. Where the Hebrew simply says "I will be with thee and bless thee," the Aramaic ...
The covenant that God first made with Abraham under the night sky is spoken again — this time to Isaac. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it with the same thunderous promise. "I w...
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, ...
When the Philistines try to erase Abraham's memory, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us what Isaac does. He digs. Again. "And Izhak digged again the wells of water which the servan...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a detail to the first quarrel in Gerar that changes the whole story. The plain text says only that the shepherds of Gerar fought Isaac's shepherds o...
Two wells dug, two wells contested. The third well, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us, was different. "For that they did not contend as formerly, and he called the name of it (Ra...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan keeps the voice of the Holy One personal. "I am the God of Abraham thy father; fear not, for My Word is for thy help, and I will bless thee, and multiply...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a detail the plain Hebrew only implies. "And when Izhak went forth from Gerar the wells dried up, and the trees made no fruit; and they felt that it...
It is a rare thing in the Torah — a gentile king confessing, in plain terms, that he has seen God at work. But that is exactly what Abimelech does. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan recor...
The request Abimelech makes of Isaac is almost humble. "Lest thou do us evil. Forasmuch as we have not come nigh thee for evil, and as we have acted with thee only for good, and ha...
The treaty is signed in the morning. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a detail the Hebrew only whispers. "He broke off from the bridle of his ass, and gave one part to them for a te...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan opens the scene of Rebekah's plan with a line the Hebrew does not speak. "Behold, this night those on high praise the Lord of the world, and the treasure...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not let Rebekah's instruction pass as a simple culinary request. She tells Jacob, "Go now to the house of the flock, and take me from thence two fat...
The moment Jacob hesitates is the moment Rebekah makes her most astonishing offer. "If with blessings he bless thee, they shall be upon thee and upon thy sons; and if with curses h...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a line that pulls the whole arc of Genesis together in one verse. The vestments Rebekah puts on Jacob, the Targum tells us, "had formerly been Adam'...
This is the sentence the rabbis have wrestled with for two thousand years. Jacob, dressed in Adam's garments, stands in front of his blind father and says, "I am Esau thy firstborn...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves one of the most quoted lines in all of Genesis. Isaac, blind and suspicious, draws Jacob near, touches him, and says, "This voice is the voice ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan quietly drops a cosmic detail into the meal. When Isaac asks for wine, the Hebrew text does not explain where it comes from. The Targum does. "He had no ...
When Isaac draws Jacob close and breathes him in, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us what the patriarch actually smells. It is not the field. It is not the goats. It is the incens...
The blessing Isaac pours over Jacob is compact, poetic, and nearly liturgical. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it in solemn Aramaic. "Therefore the Word of the Lord give thee of...
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...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan sharpens the timing of the scene to a breath. "It was when Izhak had finished blessing Jakob, and Jakob had only gone out about two handbreadths from Izh...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan offers a theological explanation for why Esau arrived late and empty-handed. "The Word of the Lord had impeded him from taking clean venison; but he had ...
The moment Esau walks in with his meal, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us something the Hebrew only hints at. "Izhak was moved with great agitation when he heard the voice of Esa...
The cry Esau lets out when he realizes the blessing is gone is one of the most haunting sounds in the Torah. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it in its raw Aramaic. "He cried w...
There is a pun beneath Esau's outburst, and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not let us miss it. "His name is truly called Jakob; for he hath dealt treacherously with me these two t...
Isaac's answer to his weeping elder son is one of the saddest sentences in the Torah. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves its resignation with a quiet Aramaic cadence. "Behold, I ...
The blessing Isaac gives Esau, as the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records it, is a warning and a prophecy woven together. "Upon thy sword shalt thou depend, entering at every place: yet...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan lets us listen in on Esau's inner counsel, and it is chilling. "Esau said in his heart, I will not do as Kain did, who slew Habel in the life (time) of h...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not let us wonder how Rebekah heard. "The words of Esau her elder son, who thought in his heart to kill Jakob, were shown by the Holy Spirit to Rive...
Rebekah's instruction to Jacob is urgent, and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a Genesis-deep lament to the end of it. "Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day: thou being s...
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...
When Isaac laid his hands on Jacob a second time, this time with full knowledge of whom he was blessing, he called down the name by which the patriarchs had always known the Holy O...
Before Jacob left Beersheba for Haran, Isaac did something that could not be undone. He transferred the blessing of Abraham — the promise of land, seed, and covenant — from father ...
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 s...
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 P...
The Torah says only that Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran (Genesis 28:10). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan refuses to let the sentence stay that quiet. It unpacks the day into...
The Torah says Jacob came upon a place and lay down because the sun had set (Genesis 28:11). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot read that verse without shouting. It was not just any...
Jacob dreamed, and a ladder stood from earth to heaven (Genesis 28:12). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills the rungs with specific traffic. The two angels on the ladder were not anon...
In the Torah, God simply stands beside Jacob in the dream (Genesis 28:13). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adjusts the posture with surgical care. What Jacob saw was not God Himself but...
