Lectionary Calendar
Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024
the First Week of Advent
Attention!
StudyLight.org has pledged to help build churches in Uganda. Help us with that pledge and support pastors in the heart of Africa.
Click here to join the effort! Bible Encyclopedias
Targum
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Search for…
or
tar´gum ( תּרגּוּם , targūm ):
1. Meaning and Etymology of the Term
2. Origin of the Targums
3. Language of the Targums
4. Mode in Which the Targums Were Given
5. Date of the Targums
6. Characteristics of the Different Targums
(1) Onkelos - the Man
Characteristics of His Targum
(2) The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel on the Prophets
Characteristics of His Targum - E arlier Prophets; Later Prophets
(3) Hagiographa: Psalms, Job and Proverbs
( a ) The Meghilloth
( b ) Chronicles
(4) The Non-official Targums - J onathan ben Uzziel and the Pentateuch
7. Use of the Targums
LITERATURE
The Targums were explanations of the Hebrew Scriptures in Chaldaic (Western Aramaic) for the benefit of those Jews who had partially or completely ceased to understand the sacred tongue.
1. Meaning and Etymology of the Term:
By Gesenius the word methurgām , which occurs in Ezra 4:7 , is interpreted as derived from rāgham , "to pile up stones," "to throw," hence, "to stone," and then "to translate," though no example is given. Jastrow derives it from the Assyrian r -g -m , "to speak aloud," an etymology which suits the origin of the Targums. It is unfortunate that he gives no reference to any Assyrian document.
The word turgamanu is found, e.g., in the Tell el-Amarna Letters (Berlin edition, 21,1. 25, Knudtzon, 154), with the meaning "interpreter." It may, none the less, be of Aramaic origin. See Muss-Arnolt, Concise Dictionary of the Assyrian Language , 1191 f, and the references there given.
The word is used as the Aramaic interpretation of shiggāyōn ( Psalm 7:1 ), a term the precise force of which is yet unfixed. From this rāgham comes meturghemān , "an interpreter," and our modern "dragoman." Whatever the original meaning of the root, the word came to mean "to translate," "to explain."
2. Origin of the Targums:
At the time when Nebuchadnezzar carried the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah captive to the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates, the language of everyday life in Assyria and Babylonia had ceased to be that which has come down to us in the cuneiform inscriptions, and had become Aramaic, the lingua franca of Southwestern Asia. It was the language of diplomacy, of business and of social intercourse, and had long been so. Dwelling in the midst of those who used Aramaic alone, the Jews soon adopted it for every occasion save worship. In the family they might retain their mother tongue for a time, but this would yield at length to continuous pressure from without. In Palestine a similar process had been going on in the absence of the captives. Intruders from various neighboring peoples had pressed in to occupy the blanks left by the removal of the Jewish captives to Babylon. Although it is not recorded, it is not impossible that following the example of the Assyrians, Nebuchadnezzar may have sent into Judea compulsory colonists from other parts of his empire. The language common to all these, in addition to their native dialect, was Aramaic. The Jewish inhabitants that had been left in the land would, like their relatives in Babylonia, have become accustomed to the use of Aramaic, to the exclusion, more or less complete, of Hebrew. Another process had begun among the captives. Away from the site of their destroyed temple, the exiles did not, like those in Upper Egypt, erect another temple in which to offer sacrifices. Their worship began to consist in the study of the Law in common, in chanting of the Psalms and united prayers. This study of the Law implied that it should be understood. Though some form of synagogue worship was known in the times preceding the captivity under the direction probably of the prophets ( 2 Kings 4:23 ), it must have become weak and ineffective. With the arrival of Ezra there was a revival of the study of the Law, and with that the necessity for the interpretation of it in language which the people could understand.
3. Language of the Targums:
From the facts above narrated, this language was of necessity Aramaic. There were, however, forces at work to modify the language. A translation is liable to be assimilated so far, to the language from which it is made. Thus there is a difference, subtle but observable, between the English of our the King James Version of the Bible and that of Shakespeare, Bacon, or even Hooker. Or, to take an example more cognate, if less accessible to the general reader, the difference may be seen if one compares the Syriac of the New Testament Peshitta with that of the Peshitta of the Old Testament. The Aramaic of the Targums is Western Aramaic, but it is Western Aramaic tinctured with Hebrew. The fact that the returned captives originally had spoken Hebrew would doubtless have its effect on their Aramaic. German in Jewish lips becomes Yiddish. One very marked feature is the presence of yath , the sign of the accusative translating the Hebrew 'ēth , whereas in ordinary Aramaic, Eastern and Western, this is unused, except as supporting the oblique case of pronouns. Further, the intensive construction of infinitive with finite sense, so frequent in Hebrew, though little used in ordinary Aramaic, appears in the Targums wherever it occurs in the Hebrew text. As a negative characteristic there is to be noted the comparative rarity with which the emphatic repetition of the personal pronoun, so frequent in ordinary Aramaic, occurs in the Targumic.
4. Mode in Which the Targums Were Given:
The account given in Nehemiah (Nehemiah 8:8 ) of the reading of the Law to the people not only mentions that Ezra's helpers read "distinctly" (mephōrāsh ), but "gave the sense" (sōm sekhel ) "and caused them to understand the reading," the King James Version (wayyābhı̄nū ba -miḳrā' ). This threefold process implies more than merely distinct enunciation. If this passage is compared with Ezra 4:18 it would seem that mephōras̄h ought to mean "interpreted." The most natural explanation is that alongside of the readers of the Law there were interpreters, meturghemānı̄m , who repeated in Aramaic what had been read in Hebrew. What interval separated this public reading of the Law from the reading of the Law as a portion of synagogue worship we have no means of knowing. The probability is that in no long time the practice of reading the Law with an Aramaic interpretation was common in all Jewish synagogues. Elaborate rules are laid down in the Talmud for this interpretation; how far these were those actually used we cannot be absolutely certain. They at least represent the ideal to which after-generations imagined the originators of the practice aspired. The Law was read by the reader verse by verse, and each verse was followed by a recitation by the meturgheman of the Aramaic version. Three verses of the prophetic books were read before the Aramaic was recited. The Talmudists were particular that the reader should keep his eye on the roll from which he read, and that the meturghemānı̄m should always recite his version without looking at any writing, so that a distinction should be kept between the sacred word and the version. At first the Targum was not committed to writing, but was handed down by tradition from meturghemānı̄m to meturghemānı̄m . That of the Law became, however, as stereotyped as if it had been written. So to some extent was it with the Prophets and also the Psalms. The Targums of the rest of the Kethūbhı̄m seem to have been written from the beginning and read in private.
5. Date of the Targums:
We have assumed that the action of Ezra narrated in Nehemiah 8:8 implied not only the reading of the Law, but also the interpretation of its language - its translation in fact from Hebrew to Aramaic, and that, further, this practice was ere long followed in all the synagogues in Judea. This view is maintained by Friedmann ( Onkelos u. Akylas , 1896) and was that assumed to be correct by the Talmud. Dr. Dalman assures his readers that this is a mistake, but without assigning any reasons for his assertion. Dr. Dalman is a very great authority, but authority is not science, so we venture to maintain the older opinion. The fact is undeniable that, during the Persian domination all over Southwestern Asia, Aramaic was the lingua franca , so much so that we see by the Assouan and Elephantine papyri the Jewish garrison at Assouan in Egypt wrote to their co- religionists in Judea, and to the Persian governors, in Aramaic. Moreover, there is no trace that they used any other tongue for marriage contracts or deeds of sale.
We may assume that in Judea the language commonly used in the 5th century BC was Aramaic. We may neglect then the position of Mr. Stenning ( Enc Brit (11th edition), XXVI , 418b) that "probably as early as the 2nd century BC the people had adopted Aramaic." By that time Aramaic was giving place to Greek. His reason for rejecting the position above maintained is that the dates assigned by criticism to certain prophetic writings conflict with it - a mode of reasoning that seems to derive facts from theories, not theories from facts.
The fact that the necessity for translation into Aramaic existed in the Persian period implies the existence of the meturghemānı̄m and the targum . It is more difficult to know when these Targums were committed to writing. It is probable that the same movement, which led Jehūdāh ha - Nāsı̄' to commit to writing the decisions of the rabbis which form the Mishna, would lead to writing down the Targums - that is to say late in the 2nd century of our era. Aramaic was disappearing in Palestine and the traditional renderings would be liable to be forgotten. Talmudic stories as to dates at which the various Targums were written down are absolutely valueless.
6. Characteristics of the Different Targums:
The Targums that require most to be considered are the official Targums, those that are given in the rabbinic Bibles in columns parallel with the columns of Hebrew. In addition, there is for the Law the Targum Yerūshalmı̄ , another recension of which is called Targum Yōnāthān ben Uzziel . The Book of Esther has two Targums. Besides these, Targums of doubtful value have been written by private individuals. Certain books have no official Targums: Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles. The reason for this is supposed to be that in both Daniel and Ezra there are portions written in Aramaic. Nehemiah and Chronicles were regarded as forming one book with Ezra. A late Targum on Chronicles has been found and published separately. Some of the apocryphal additions to Esther appear in a late Targum to that book. The official Targums of the Law and the Prophets approach more nearly the character of translations, though even in them verses are at times explained rather than translated. The others are paraphrastic to a greater or less degree.
(1) Onkelos - T he Man.
This is the name given to the official Targum of the Pentatuech. The legend is that it was written by one Onqelos, a proselyte son of Kalonymus or Kalonikus, sister's son of Titus. He was associated with the second Gamaliel and is represented as being even more minutely punctilious in his piety than his friend. The legend goes on to say that, when he became a proselyte, his uncle sent company after company of soldiers to arrest him, but he converted them, one after another. It is at the same time extremely doubtful whether there ever was such a person, a view that is confirmed by the fact that legends almost identical are related of Aquila, the translator of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. The names are similar, and it may be are identical. While there may have been a person so named, the admission of this does not imply that he had any connection with the Targum of the Pentateuch named after him. Another explanation is that as the Greek version of Aquila was much praised by the Jews for its fastidious accuracy, and this Targum of the Law was credited with equally careful accuracy, so all that is meant is that it was regarded as a version which as accurately represented in Aramaic the Hebrew of the Law as did Aquila's Greek. The probability is that whoever it was who committed the Targum to writing did little or no actual translating. It might not be the work of one unassisted author; the reference to the guidance Onqelos is alleged to have received from the rabbis Eliezer and Joshua suggests this. Owing to the fact that the Law was read through in the course of a year in Babylonian (once in three years in Pal) and every portion interpreted verse by verse in Aramaic, as it was read, the very words of the traditional rendering would be remembered. This gives the language of the Targum an antique flavor which may be seen when it is compared with that of the Palestinian lectionary discovered by Mrs. Gibson and Mrs. Lewis. Especially is this observed when the renderings of the same passage are put in comparison. Both in vocabulary and grammar there is a difference; thus mār occurs for shallēṭ , and yath as the sign of the accusative has disappeared in the lectionary. An analogy may be seen in the antique flavor of the language of our English Bible, even in the Revised Version (British and American). If any credence were to be given to the traditional account of the alleged authors, the date of this Targum would be the end of the 1st century AD. But we have seen that it has been named Aquila and that the title means "as accurate as Aquila." He, however, lived in the beginning of the 2nd century. His Greek version must have already gained a reputation before the Aramaic Targum appeared. We cannot therefore date the actual committing of this Targum to writing earlier than late in the 2nd century, not improbably, as suggested above, contemporary with the writing down of the Mishna by Jehadah ha-Nasi'.
Characteristics of His Targum:
The characteristics of this Targum are in general close adherence to the original, sometimes even to the extent of doing violence to the genius of the language into which it has been translated. One prominent example of this is the presence of yath as the sign of the accusative; and there is also the intensive construction of infinitive with finite tense. There is a tendency to insert something between God and His worshipper, as " mı̄merā' Yahweh" instead of simply "Yahweh." Where anthropomorphisms occur, an exact translation is not attempted, but the sense is represented in an abstract way, as in Genesis 11:5 , where instead of "The Lord (YHWH ) came down" there is "The Lord (yiyā' ) was revealed." At the same time there is not a total avoidance of paraphrase. In Genesis 4:7 the Targum renders, "If thou doest thy work well, is it not remitted unto thee? if thou doest not thy work well, thy sin is reserved unto the day of judgment when it will be required of thee if thou do not repent, but if thou repent it shall be remitted to thee." It will be observed that the last clause of the Hebrew is omitted. So in Genesis 3:22 , instead of "Man has become as one of us," Onqelos writes "Man has become alone in the world by himself to know good and evil.' A more singular instance occurs in Genesis 27:13 , where Rebekah answers Jacob, "Upon me be thy curse, my son"; in the Targum it is, "Unto me it hath been said in prophecy, there shall be no curse upon thee my son." Sometimes there is a mere explanatory expansion, as in Exodus 3:1 , where instead of "the mount of God," Onqelos has "the mountain on which the glory of the Lord was revealed." In the mysterious passage, Exodus 4:24-26 , later Jewish usage is brought in to make an easy sense: "And it was on the way in the inn (house of rest) that the angel of the Lord met him and sought to slay him. And Zipporah took a flint knife and cut off the foreskin of her son and came near before him and said 'In the blood of this circumcision is the bridegroom given back to us,' and when therefore he had desisted she said, 'Had it not been for the blood of this circumcision the bridegroom would have been condemned to die.'" Here ḥāthān (" bridegroom") is used according to later custom of the child to be circumcised. Sometimes reasons of propriety come in, as when the sin of Onan is described "corrupting his way on the earth. It is, however, in the poetical passages that the writer gives loose rein to paraphrase. As an example the blessing of Judah in Jacob's blessing of his sons may be given: "Judah, thou art praise and not shame; thee thy brethren shall praise. Thy hands shall be strong upon thine enemies, those that hate thee shall be scattered; they shall be turned back before thee; the sons of thy father shall come before thee with salutations. (Thy) rule shall be in the beginning, and in the end the kingdom shall be increased from the house of Judah, because from the judgment of death, my son, thy soul hast thou removed. He shall rest, he shall abide in strength, as a lion and as a lioness there is nothing may trouble him. The ruler shall not depart from the house of Judah nor the scribe from his son's sons for ever till the Messiah come whose is the kingdom and whom the heathen shall obey. Israel shall trade in his cities, the people shall build his temple, the saints shall be going about to him and shall be doers of the Law through his instruction. His raiment shall be goodly crimson; his clothing covering him, of wool dyed bright with colors. His mountains shall be red with his vineyards, his hills shall flow down with wine, and his valleys shall be white with corn and with flocks of sheep."
Committed to writing in Palestine, the Targum of Onqelos was sent to Babylon to get the imprimatur of the famous rabbis residing there. There are said to be traces in the language of a revision by the Babylonian teachers, but as this lies in the prevalence of certain words that are regarded as more naturally belonging to Eastern than Western Aramaic, it is too restrictedly technical to be discussed here. The result of the Babylonian sanction was the reception of this Targum as the official interpretation of the books of the Law. It seems probable that the mistake which led to its being attributed to Onqelos was made in Babylon where Aquila's Greek version was not known save by vague reputation.
(2) The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Prophets.
This Jonathan, to whom the Targum on the Prophets is attributed, is declared to be one of the most distinguished pupils of Hillel. The prophetic section of the Bible according to the Jews contains, besides what we ordinarily reckon prophetic books, also all the earlier historical books except Ruth, which is placed among the Hagiographa. During the persecution of the Jews by Epiphanes, when the Law was forbidden to be read in the synagogue, portions of the Prophets were read instead. There was no attempt to read the whole of the Prophets thus, but very considerable portions were used in worship. This necessitated the presence of the meturghemān . If one might believe the Talmudic traditions, Jonathan's Targum was committed to writing before that of Onḳelos . Jonathan is regarded as the contemporary of the first Gamaliel, whereas Onḳelos is the friend of Aḳiba , the contemporary of Hadrian. The tradition is that when he published his Targum of the Prophets, all Palestine was shaken, and a voice from heaven was heard demanding, "Who is this who revealeth my secrets to the sons of men?" As an example of the vagueness of Talmudic chronology, it may be mentioned that Jonathan was said to have made his Targum under the guidance of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. He is said to have desired to write a Targum of the Kethūbhı̄m , but was forbidden by a voice from heaven. The Targum of Job was skid to have been already written, but was buried by Gamaliel. It is said to have been exhumed and that the present Targum on that book is from Jonathan's hand. The tomb of Jonathan ben Uzziel is shown on the face of a hill to the North of Safed , Palestine.
Characteristics of His Targum - E arlier Prophets; Later Prophets
In the former Prophets - the historical books - the style does not differ much from that of Onqelos. Occasionally there are readings followed which are not in the Massoretic Text, as Joshua 8:12 , where the Targum has "the west side of Ai" instead of as in the Massoretic Text, "the west side of the city." Sometimes two readings are combined, as in Joshua 8:16 , where the Massoretic Text has "all the people which were in the city," the Targum adds "in Ai." Again, the Targum translates proper names, as, in Joshua 7:5 , "Shebarim" (shebhārı̄m ) is rendered "till they were scattered." Such are the variations to be seen in the narrative portion of the Targum of the earlier Prophets. When, however, a poetical piece occurs, the writer at times gives rein to his imagination. Sometimes one verse is exceedingly paraphrastic and the next an accurate rendering without any addition. In the song of Deborah (Jdg 5) the 1st verse has only a little of paraphrase: "Then sang praises Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on account of the lifting up and deliverance which had been wrought in that day, saying..."The verse which follows is very paraphrastic; instead of the 7 words of the verse in the Massoretic Text the Targum has 55. it is too long to quote in full, but it begins, "Because the house of Israel rebelled against His Law, the Gentiles came up upon them and disturbed their assemblies, and because they refused to obey the Law, their enemies prevailed against them and drove them from the borders of the land of Israel," and so on, Sisera and all his host being introduced. Judges 5:3 reads thus, "Hear O kings who are with him, with Sisera for war, who obey the officers of Jabin the king of Canaan; with your might and your valor ye shall not prevail nor go up against Israel, said I D eborah in prophecy before the Lord. I will sing praise and bless before Yahweh the God of Israel."
The later prophets are more paraphrastic as a whole than the earlier, as having more passages with poetic metaphors in them - a fact that is made plain to anyone by the greater space occupied in the rabbinic Bibles by the Targums of the Prophets. A marked example of this tendency to amplify is to be found in Jeremiah 10:11 : "Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens." As this verse is in Aramaic it might have been thought that it would have been transferred to the Targum unchanged, but the Targumist has made of the 10 words of the original text 57. Sometimes these expansions may be much shorter than the above example, but are illuminative, showing the views held by the Jewish teachers. In Isaiah 29:1 , "Ho Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped!" the Targum has "Woe to the altar, the altar which David built in the city in which he dwelt." In this rendering we see the Jewish opinion that "Ariel," which means "lion of God," in this connection stood for the "altar" which David erected in Jerusalem. It seems unlikely that this whole Targum was the work of one writer, but the style gives little indication of difference. The paraphrase of the synagogal haphṭārōth being traditional, the style of the person who committed it to writing had little scope. The language represents naturally an older stage of development than we find in the contemporary Christian lectionaries. As only portions of the Prophets were used in synagogue worship, only those portions would have a traditional rendering; but these fixed the style. In the Revised Version (British and American) of the Apocrypha the 70 verses which had been missing from 2 Esdras 7 are translated in the style adopted by the translators under King James. It is impossible to fix the date at which the Targum of any of the prophetic books was written down. It is probable that it was little if at all after that of Onqelos. The completion of the paraphrases of the prophetic writings, of which only portions were used in the synagogue, seems to imply that there were readers of the Aramaic for whose benefit those Targums were made.
(3) Hagiographa: Psalms, Job and Proverbs
(A) The Meghilloth
The Targums of the third division of the Hebrew sacred writings, the Kethūbhı̄m (the Hagiographa), are ascribed to Joseph Caecus, but this is merely a name. There is no official Targum of any of the Hagiographa, and several of them, Daniel, Nehemiah and Ezra, as above noted, have no Targum at all. Those of the longer books of this class, Psalms, Proverbs and Job, are very much closer to the text than are the Targums of the Meghillōth . In the Psalms, the paraphrase is explanatory rather than simply expansive. Thus in Psalm 29:1 , "ye sons of the mighty" is rendered "ye companies of angels, ye sons of the mighty." Psalm 23:1-6 is further from the text, but it also is exegetic; instead of "Yahweh is my shepherd, I shall not want," the Targum reads, "The Lord nourished His people in the wilderness so that they lacked nothing." So the last clause of the last verse of this psalm is, "'I shall indeed dwell in the house of the holiness of the Lord for the length of days." Another example of exegesis is Psalm 46:4 , in which the "river whose streams make glad the city of our God" is explained as "the nations as rivers making glad the city of Yahweh." Much the same may be said of Job, so examples need not be given.
The Targum of Proverbs has been very much influenced by the Peshitta; it may be regarded as a Jewish recension of it. Those of the five Meghillōth , as they are called, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentation, Ecclesiates, and Esther, are excessively paraphrastic. If one compare the space occupied by the text of Canticles and Proverbs, it will be found that the former occupies about one-sixth of the latter; if the Targums of the two books are compared in Lagarde's text, the Canticles are two-thirds of Proverbs. So Lamentations occupies in the Massoretic Text less than a quarter the space which Proverbs occupies; but the Targum of Lain is two-fifths the size of the Targum of Proverbs. Ruth has not suffered such a dilatation; in the text it is a fifth, in the Targum a fourth, the size of Proverbs. The expansion mainly occurs in the first verse in which ten different famines are described. Ecclesiates in the Massoretic Text uses about three-eighths of the space occupied by Proverbs. This is increased to five-sixths in the Targum. There are two Targums of Esther, the first about five-sixths the size of Proverbs, the second, nearly double. The text is under one-half. We subjoin the Targum of Lamentations 11 from Mr. Greenup's translation: Jeremiah the prophet and high priest said: "How is it decreed against Jerusalem and against her people that they should be condemned to exile and that lamentation should be made for them? How? Just as Adam and Eve were condemned who were ejected from the garden of Eden and over whom the Lord of the universe lamented. How? God the judge answers and speaks thus: 'Because of the multitude of the sins which were in the midst of her, therefore she will dwell alone as the man in whose flesh is the plague of leprosy dwells alone! And the city that was full of crowds and many people hath been deserted by them and become like a widow. And she that was exalted among the peoples and powerful among the provinces, to whom they paid tribute, hath been scattered abroad so as to be oppressed and to give tribute to them after this." This gives a sufficient example of the extent to which expansion can go. Verse 1 of Esther in the first Targum informs us that the cessation of the work of building the Temple was due to the advice of Vashti, and that she was the daughter of Evil-merodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, and a number of equally accurate pieces of information. Yet more extravagant is the 2Targum; it begins by asserting that there are ten great monarchs of whom Achhashverosh was the 6th, the Greek and Roman were the 7th and the 8th, Messiah the king the 9th, and the Almighty Himself the 10th. It evidently has no connection with the first Targum.
(B) Chronicles
The Targum of Chronicles, although late, is modeled on the Targums of Jonathan ben Uzziel. In cases where the narrative of Chronicles runs parallel with that of Samuel the resemblance is very great, even to verbal identity at times. The differences sometimes are worthy of note, as where in 1 Chronicles 21:2 , instead of "Dan" the Targum has "Pameas" (Paneas), which affords an evidence of the lateness of this Targum. In the rabbinic Bible, Chronicles appear, as do Ezra, Nehemiah and Daniel, without a parallel Targum.
(4) The Non-Official Targums - J onathan Ben Uzziel and the Pentateuch
There is a Targum on the Pentateuch attributed to Jonathan ben Uzziel which is very paraphrastic. Fragments of another closely related Targum have been preserved, known as the Jerusalem Targum. In face the two may really be regarded as different recensions of the same Targum. It is supposed that some manuscript was denominated simply "the targum of J," which, really being the initial representing, "Jerusalem," was taken as representing Jonathan. At the end of each of the books of the Pentateuch is is stated that this Targum is the "targum Yerūshalmı̄ " Of the two the Yerūshalmı̄ is the longer. Both assert that five signs accompanied Jacob in his stay in Haran: the time was shortcried; the distance was shortened; the four stones for his pillow became one; his strength was increased so that with his own arm he moved the stone covering the well which it took all the shepherds to move; the water gushed from the well all the days he dwelt in Haran. But the narrative of ben Uzziel is expanded to nearly twice the length in the Yerūshalmı̄ . This Targum may be regarded as to some extent semi-official.
7. Use of the Targums:
As the Targums appear to have been committed to writing after the Massoretic Text was fixed, textual differences are few and unimportant. Kohn mentions that in a few cases Onqelos agrees with the Samaritan against the Massoretic Text; they are, however, few, and possibly may be explained by differences of idiom, though from the slavish way in which Onqelos follows the Hebrew text this is improbable. The Palestine Targum agrees with the Samaritan and the versions in adding "Let us go into the field" in Genesis 4:8 . The main benefit received from the Targums is the knowledge of the views of the Jewish rabbis as to the meaning of certain passages Thus in Genesis 49:10 there is no doubt in the mind of the Targumist that "Shiloh" refers to the Messiah. Some other cases have been noted above. The frequency with which the word of the Lord ( mı̄merā' yeyā' ) is used in Onqelos as equivalent to YHWH , as Genesis 3:8 , "They heard the voice of the word of the Lord God," mı̄merā' dheyeyā' 'Ělōhı̄m , requires to be noted from its bearing on Christian theology. There is a peculiar usage in Genesis 15:1 : YHWH says to Abraham, "Fear not, Abram, my word (mı̄merā' ) shall help thee." Pharaoh is represented as using this periphrasis: "The word of the Lord (mı̄merā' yeyā' ) be for your help when I send away you and your little ones" (Exodus 10:10 ). A striking use of this phrase is to be found in Deuteronomy 33:27 , where instead of "Underneath are the everlasting arms," we have "By His word the world was made." This is at once seen to resemble the usage of Philo and the apostle John. As the Targums had not been committed to writing during the lifetime of either of these writers, it might be maintained that the Targumists had been influenced by Philo. This, however, does not follow necessarily, as both apostle and philosopher would have heard the Targum of the Law recited Sabbath after Sabbath from their boyhood, and the phrase mı̄merā' yeyā' would remain in their memory. The Targums of the pseudo-Jonathan and that of Jerusalem have a yet more frequent use of the term. Edersheim has counted 176 occurrences of the phrase in Onqelos and 321 in that of the pseudo-Jonathan and in the fragments of the Yerūshalmı̄ 99. This is made the more striking by the fact that it rarely occurs in the rest of Scripture. In Amos 1:2 , instead of "Yahweh ... will utter his voice from Jerusalem," we have "From Jerusalem will He lift up His word" (mēmerı̄h ). The usual equivalent for the prophet's formula "the word of the Lord" is pithgām YHWH . An example of the usage before us may be found in Psalm 56:4 , Psalm 56:10 : "In the righteousness of the judgment of God will I praise his word" ( mēmerı̄h ). There was thus a preparation for the Christian doctrine of the Trinity imbedded in the most venerated Targum, that of the Law.
Literature.
The text of the official Targums is to be found in every rabbinic Bible. Berliner has published a careful, vocalized edition of Onqelos. The Prophets and the Hagiographa have been edited by Lagarde, but unvocalized. For the language Peterrnann's grammar in the Porta Linguarum Orientalium is useful. Levy's Chaldaisches Woterbuch is very good. Jastrow's Dict. of the Targumim is invaluable. Brextorf's Lexicon Talmudicum supplies information not easily available elsewhere. The Targums on the Pentateuch have been translated by Etheridge. There is an extensive literature on this subject in German. In English the different Bible Dictionaries. may be consulted, especially McClintock, DB , HDB , EB , etc. The article in Encyclopedia Brit is worthy of study, as also naturally that in the Jewish Encyclopedia .
Copyright Statement
These files are public domain and were generously provided by the folks at WordSearch Software.
Bibliography Information
Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. Entry for 'Targum'. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/isb/t/targum.html. 1915.
