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When Jacob finally set out to reunite with Joseph, he sent Judah on ahead. The Torah says only that Judah was to "show the way before him to Goshen" (Genesis 46:28). The Targum Pse...
The Torah sums up the family's first years in Egypt in a single line: "And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen, and they had possessions therein, and grew a...
In the Hebrew, Issachar is called a "strong donkey bowing under its burden" (Genesis 49:14). The image sounds pastoral — a beast of fields and heavy loads. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan r...
"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 t...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 10:23 reveals a secret buried in the ninth plague that the plain Torah only hints at. "No man saw his brother, and none arose from his place th...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 15:22 slips in a phrase that seems geographical but is actually theological: they journeyed three days in the desert, empty of instruction, and fou...
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 ...
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 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, ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:7) records the moment the covenant was sealed: Mosheh took the Book of the Covenant of the Law and read before the people; and they said...
The plain Hebrew of Exodus 24:12 reads simply that God promised Moses the tablets of stone, the Torah, and the commandment. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot leave it that spare. T...
The plain verse of Exodus 24:18 is almost flat. Moses entered the cloud and went up the mountain, and he was there forty days and forty nights. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot le...
The construction of the Mishkan is described in Exodus 26 with a catalog of measurements and materials that reads, on the surface, like an architect's invoice. Ten curtains of fine...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 28:19 lists the third row of the breastplate: ligure, and agate, and amethyst, engraved with Gad, Asher, and Issachar. The tribes of this row w...
The Mishkan was about to be built. Artisans had received the Spirit of wisdom. Materials were being gathered. And then, in the middle of the construction commands, God paused and s...
The people took off the ornaments they had received at Sinai. What happened to them? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, answers with a detail the plain te...
After the calf, Moses pitched his personal tent far from the people. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, gives us the exact distance and what happened ther...
The Torah says the Lord spoke with Moses "face to face, as a man speaks with his friend." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, refuses to let the metaphor m...
After the intercession, the mercy, and the glimpse of the tefillin knot, the Lord gave Moses a practical command that would take him back up Sinai a second time. Targum Pseudo-Jona...
There is a moment on Sinai when God tells Moses to write. Not to remember, not to transmit orally, not to carve into stone alone — but to write. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 34...
The Tabernacle needed more than materials. It needed people who could work them — weave, embroider, sew, carve, cast, and then show others how to do the same. Targum Pseudo-Jonatha...
Why five curtains on one side and six on the other? The Torah simply gives the numbers (Exodus 36:16). But Targum Pseudo-Jonathan offers a staggering interpretation: he joined five...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 39:33 does something the plain Hebrew text does not. It tells us where, exactly, the finished tabernacle was brought. Not to a random tent. Not to ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 40:5 refuses to let a single detail of the sanctuary pass without meaning. The golden altar of incense is to be placed before the ark of the testim...
