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Pseudo Jonathan Deuteronomy

About this book
Chapter 34

And Mosheh went up from the plains of Moab to the mountain of Nebo, to the summit of the height which is over against Jericho; and the Word of the Lord showed him all the strong ones of the land, and the mighty acts which would be done by Jeptha of Gilead, and the victories of Shimeon bar Manoah of tribe of Dan; and the thousand princes of Beth Naphtali who would gather with Barak, and the kings who would be slain by Jehoshua bar Nun of the tribe of Ephraim, and the deeds of strength to be wrought by Gideon bar Yoash of the tribe of Menasheh, and all the kings of Israel, and of the kingdom of Beth Jehudah, who would have dominion in the land until the latter sanctuary should be destroyed. And the king of the south who will combine with the king of the north to destroy the inhabitants of the land and the Ammonites and Moabites, the dwellers in the plain, who will oppress Israel, and the captives of Elijah"s disciples who will be dispersed from the plain of Jericho, and the captives of Elisha"s disciples who will be dispersed from the city of palm trees by the hand of their brethren of Beth Israel, two hundred thousand men; and the affliction of generation after generation, and the punishment of Armalgos the wicked, and the battle of Gog, when in the time of that great tribulation Michael will rise up to deliver by his arm. And the Lord said to him, This is the end of the word concerning the land, and this is the land which I covenanted unto Abraham, to Izhak, and to Jacob, saying, I will give it unto your children. I grant thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not pass over to it. Mosheh, the Rabban of Israel, was born on the seventh day of the month Adar, and on the seventh day of Adar he was gathered from the world. A voice fell from heaven, and thus spake: Come, all ye who have entered into the world, and behold the grief of Mosheh, the Rabban of Israel, who hath laboured, but not to please himself, and who is ennobled with four goodly crowns:⁠ the crown of the Law is his, because he brought it from the heavens above, when there was revealed to him the Glory of the Lord"s Shekinah, with two thousand myriads of angels, and forty and two thousand chariots of fire. The crown of the Priesthood bath been his in the seven days of the peace offerings. The crown of the kingdom they gave him in possession from heaven: he drew not the sword, nor prepared the war horse, nor gathered he the host. The crown of a good name he possesseth by good works and by his humility. Therefore is Mosheh, the servant of the Lord, gathered in the land of Moab, by the kiss of the Word of the Lord. Blessed be the Name of the Lord of the world, who hath taught us His righteous way. He hath taught us to clothe the naked, as He clothed Adam and Hava; He hath taught us to unite the bridegroom and the bride in marriage, as He united Hava to Adam. He bath taught us to visit the sick, as He revealed Himself to Abraham when he was ill, from being circumcised; He hath taught us to console the mourners, as He revealed Himself again to Jakob when returning from Padan, in the place where his mother had died. He hath taught us to feed the poor, as He sent Israel bread from heaven; He hath taught us to bury the dead by (what He did for) Mosheh; for He revealed Himself in His Word, and with Him the companies of ministering angels. Michael and Gabriel spread forth the golden bed,⁠ fastened with chrysolites, gems, and beryls, adorned with hangings of purple silk, and satin, and white linens. Metatron, Jophiel, and Uriel, and Jephephya, the wise sages, laid him upon it, and by His Word He conducted him four miles, and buried him in the valley opposite Beth Peor; that Israel, as oft as they look up to Peor, may have the memory of their sin; and at sight of the burying place of Mosheh may be humbled: but no man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day. Mosheh was a son of a hundred and twenty years when be died; the orbs of his eyes were not darkened, nor had his teeth passed away. And the children of Israel wept for Mosheh in the plains of Moab thirty days; and the days of weeping in the mourning for Mosheh were completed on the eighth of the month of Nisan. And on the ninth of Nisan the people of Beth Israel prepared their vessels and set their cattle in order, and passed over the Jordan on the tenth of Nisan. And the manna ceased for them on the sixteenth of Nisan. They found manna to eat thirty-seven days after the death of Mosheh, for the sake of his righteousness. But Jehoshua bar Nun was filled with the Spirit of wisdom; for Mosheh had laid his hands upon him; and the children of Israel received instruction from him, and did as the Lord had commanded (by) Mosheh. But no prophet hath again risen in Israel like unto Mosheh, because the Word of the Lord had known him to speak with him word for word, in all the signs, and wonders, and manifestations which the Word of the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Mizraim upon Pharoh, and all his servants, and all the people of his land; and in all the strength of the Mighty Hand by which he bare the rod whose weight was forty savin and that divided the sea, and smote the rock; and in all the solemn things which Mosheh did when he received the two tables of sapphire stone, whose weight was forty savin, and carried both of them in his bands in the sight of all Israel.

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Compare Deuteronomy 34:5 and Pseudo Jonathan Deuteronomy 34:5

Hebrew Bible · Targum

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Summary

Deuteronomy 34 describes Moses dying and being buried in Moab without a grave. The Aramaic translation in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan expands this, showing how Moses dies by a kiss, angels preparing a jeweled, golden bed, and a heavenly voice praising him.

Passages

Deuteronomy 34:5

Hebrew Bible
3 the Negev, and the plain of the Valley of Jericho, the city of date palm trees, as far as Zoar. 4 Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it, but you will not cross over there.” 5 So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab as the Lord had said. 6 He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab near Beth Peor, but no one knows his exact burial place to this very day. 7 Moses was 120 years old when he died, but his eye was not dull nor had his vitality departed.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

Pseudo Jonathan Deuteronomy 34:5

Targum
And the Lord said to him, This is the end of the word concerning the land, and this is the land which I covenanted unto Abraham, to Izhak, and to Jacob, saying, I will give it unto your children. I grant thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not pass over to it. Mosheh, the Rabban of Israel, was born on the seventh day of the month Adar, and on the seventh day of Adar he was gathered from the world. A voice fell from heaven, and thus spake: Come, all ye who have entered into the world, and behold the grief of Mosheh, the Rabban of Israel, who hath laboured, but not to please himself, and who is ennobled with four goodly crowns: the crown of the Law is his, because he brought it from the heavens above, when there was revealed to him the Glory of the Lord"s Shekinah, with two thousand myriads of angels, and forty and two thousand chariots of fire. The crown of the Priesthood bath been his in the seven days of the peace offerings.
300–1200 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Pseudo Jonathan Deuteronomy

References

“... This description of his death and burial is truly oxymoronic and certainly no less ambiguous than the biblical narrative, through its enhancement with many motifs that have parallels in other narratives of Moses’s death and burial. On the surface of things, TgPJ refers to Moses’s death and burial in a grave near Beth-peor, but its bolt-on details describe the events of his death and burial in celestial terms. A heavenly whisper announces the virtues of Moses during his life. Moses dies neither of old age nor of illness but by the kiss of God. His deathbed has been prepared by the angels and a golden deathbed it is, adorned with precious stones; both suggest a burial in glory rather than a burial plot. The motif of the precious stones, shared with many midrashic versions of his burial, is intrinsically linked to the garden of Eden and ultimately the divine realm as paradise, as in the description of the king of Hiram in Ezek. 28.13 (see TgJon). Not the least among the angels prepare his deathbed, while the highest possible honour bestowed on him is God’s hands-on burial of him. ...”
Willem F. Smelik, “The Lost Tomb of Moses Revisited: Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Deut. 34.5–6,” in The Targums in the Light of Traditions of the Second Temple Period, ed. Thierry Legrand and Jan Joosten, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 167 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 147.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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