Targum

“ Every endeavour is made to gloss over, or modify, expressions which seemed derogatory to the ancestors of Israel, and to amplify everything which redounded to their credit. On the other hand, pseudo-Jonathan shows a tendency to condense those additions which it has in common with the Fragmentary Targum: in particular he omits all quotations from Scripture.
In regard to the source of the two Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch, we must accept the conclusion of Bassfreund [19] that they both derived their variants from a complete Targum Jerushalmi. ”

“ As regards the complete Targum on the Prophets, no mistake can be greater than to believe that Rab Yoseph, a teacher of the 3d and 4th centuries, and head of the academy of Pumbaditha (see Rabbah) , was the author of this Targum in whole or in part. This mistake has its origin in the repeated phrase of the Babylonian Talmud, נרמתרכסרניוםף ("as Rab Yoseph targumizes") ; but then a similar phrase exists with regard to Rab Shesheth, נרמתרכסרניוםף ("as Rab Shesheth [24] targumizes") . And in like manner the expression נרמתרכסרניוםף ("as we targumize") is of frequent occurrence. ”

“ There are two commentaries on this Targum in Hebrew:— (1) by .R. David b. Ya'akob (Prague, 1609, 4to) ; (2) by R. Mordekhai b. Naphtali (Amsterdam, 1671-77, fol.) . ↑ See our Targum on Gen. xxi. 21, where Mohammed's first wife (Khadīdja) and their youngest daughter (Fatima) are mentioned by name. ↑ Bibliography.— (A) There certainly exists, somewhere in Italy, a MS. of this Targum, although the owner is at present unknown. (B) This Targum appeared for the first time in the Pentateuch edition of Venice (1590-91, 8vo) . ”

“ Buxtorf’s emendations founded on the diction of the Biblical Targum (as suggested in the Methurgeman) are a gross mistake, inasmuch as they lack the criticism of history; (8) printers’ mistakes, increasing in every new edition, have all but ruined the text. The remedies for this corruption are:— (1) good Targum MSS. in private hands and public libraries, notably in Italy, Germany, and England; (2) Targum MSS., according to the Babylonico-Assyrian system of punctuation, chiefly preserved in South Arabia, Russia, and England ”

“ Of the latter only one manuscript (Brit. Museum Add. 27031) is known to exist, and this has been utilized by Ginsburger in his Pseudo-Jonathan (Berlin, 1903) . The same scholar has also edited the Paris manuscript (110) of the Fragmentary Targum (Das Fragmententkargum, Berlin, 1899) , to which he has added the variants from Cod. Vat. 440 and the manuscripts at Nuremberg and Leipzig. In the same edition are collected the various fragments of the Targum Jerushalmi, which are to be found in the early editions of the Pentateuch and in part also in various manuscripts. ”

“ He who is well instructed will make a proper application of what he has here read; will tremble at the threatenings, and embrace the promises, of his God.
The Targum is worthy the most serious attention. "The ways of the Lord are right, and the just who walk in them shall live for ever; but the ungodly, because they have not walked in them, shall be delivered into hell."
How instructive, how convincing, how awakening, and yet how consolatory, are the words of this prophecy! Reader, lay them to heart. A godly mind cannot consider them in vain ”

“ He is hurried by the eunuchs to the queen's banquet, [49] .
Verse 1
On that night could not the king sleep - The Targum says the king had a dream, which was as follows: - "And the king saw one in the similitude of a man who spoke these words to him: Haman desireth to slay thee, and to make himself king in thy stead. Behold, he will come unto thee early in the morning, to ask from thee the man who rescued thee from death, that he may slay him: but say thou unto Haman, What shall be done for the man whose honor the king studieth? ”

“ On the linguistic side, therefore, wemay regard Onkelos " as a faithful representative of a Targum which had its rise in Judaea, the old seat of Palestinian literary activity." It is not, however, to be regarded as a reproduction in written form of a Palestinian trans- lation, but rather as an official translation of the Law, in the Judaean dialect, which was carried out in Babylon, probably about the 4th century a.d.: in its final form, according to Dalman (/.c.) it cannot be earlier than the 5th century. ”

“ The negative of this word אִיזֶבֶל might, without any great forcing of the literal sense, imply "the undefiled," Αμιαυτος; and this conjecture is supported by comparing 2 Kings, ix. 37. with the same verse in the Targum of Jonathan. They are as follows: (Heb.) :
וִהָיְתָ נִבְלַת אִיזֶבֶל כְּרמֶן עַל־פְנֵי הַשׂרֶה
In the Targum thus:
וּתִהֵי נִבֵילתָּא רְאִיזֶבֶל כְּזֶבֶל מְבַרַּר עַל אַפֵּי תַקְלָא׃
It is quite clear that the Targumists intended here a strong allusion to the original meaning of Jezebel's name ”

“ Yehiel’s {'}Arukh, s.v. פלסיא "Yerushalmi Targum" presupposes at least one other. ↑ The Targum on the Five Megilloth has all one character, and is therefore wholly Yerushalmi. ↑ The Targum itself repeatedly quotes another Targum. ↑ See Rashi on T. B., Megillah, leaf 13b, catchword זכה. We have still two Targums on Esther. It ought to be mentioned here that in the post-Talmudic Massekheth Sopherim, xiii. 6, an Aramaic translation of Esther iii, 1 is given with the introductory words: תרנם ׳וסף רכ ("Rab Yoseph targumized") . ”

“ Jarrold & Sons published page for page reprints of Targum and The Talisman. They were issued together in one volume, bound in light drab-coloured paper boards, with white paper back-label, and were accompanied by the following collective title-page:
Targum: / or, / Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages / and Dialects. / And / The Talisman, / from the Russian of Alexander Pushkin. / With Other Pieces. / By / George Borrow. / Author of “The Bible in Spain” &c. / London: / Jarrold & Sons, 3, Paternoster Buildings. ”

“ The translators formed a guild of scholars, and their interpretations gradually assumed a fixed type. By and by the current form of the Targum was committed to writing; but there was no fixed edition, and those Palestinian Targums which have come down to us belong to various recensions, and contain elements added late in the Middle Ages. This style of interpretation, in which the text was freely handled, and the exposition of the law did not stand on the level of the new science of Akiba and his associates, fell into disfavour with the dominant schools, just as the Septuagint did. ”

“ The Targum says, one hundred thousand souls of men.
The war was of God - The Targum says, the war was מן מימרא דיי min meymera dayai, "from the Word of the Lord."
Verse 25
The gods of the people of the land - We see the reason why God delivered the Hagarites into the hands of these tribes; they were abominable idolaters, and therefore God destroyed them.
Verse 26
Tilgath-pilneser - Many MSS. have תגלת Tiglath instead of תלגת Tilgath. The Syriac, the Septuagint, and the Chaldee, have the same reading as in [101] , etc. ”

“ She is as terrible as hosts of armed men, on the ground of what is said on [197] , [198] . The two armies may refer to the choirs of the bride's virgins, and the bridegroom's companions; but the similitude is not very perceptible. The Targum explains it of "the camps of Israel and Judah:" as if the bridegroom should say, "My beloved possesses all the perfections both of the Israelitish and Jewish women." But how little satisfaction do the best conjectures afford! ”

“ Origin.—Although none of the Targums now in our hands are as old as the Septuagint (q.v.) , the public use of Targums on Sabbaths, festivals, &c., is very ancient, and indeed their language was for several hundreds of years the sole one understood by the majority of the Jews in Palestine and Babylonia. How the Hebrew people of Judæa came so entirely to unlearn their own Hebrew tongue as to stand in need of an Aramaic translation of their Scriptures need not be dwelt on here (see vol. xi. p and vol. xxi. p) . ”

“ The Targum says: "God has decreed ten grievous famines to take place in the world, to punish the inhabitants of the earth, before the coming of Messiah the king. The first in the days of Adam; the second in the days of Lamech; the third in the days of Abraham; the fourth in the days of Isaac; the fifth in the days of Jacob; the sixth in the days of Boaz, who is called Abstan, (Ibzan) , the just, of Beth-lehem-judah; the seventh in the days of David, king of Israel ”

“ The same is abundantly testified by earlier writers, as by the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud, although no reference to this custom can be found in Philo, Josephus, or the Targum of Onkelos. Its earliest mention appears to be in the Targum of Jonathan on Ex. xii. 44. "Thou shalt circumcise him and baptize him." ”

“ Z., 11a, and for Aquila’s connexion with Hadrian, T. Y., Hag., ii. 1; Shem. Rab., xxx.; Epiphanius, De Mens. Et Pond., xiv. sq. ) . From these facts some (see H. Adler, Nethinah lagger, in the Vilna Pent,, 1874, Introd.) still argue that Onḳelos is but another name for Aquila, and that the Greek translator also wrote our Targum. This view was long ago refuted by R. 'Azaryah de’ Rossi, [16] and is quite untenable. It is incredible that Aquila or any other Greek could have had the mastery of Aramaic and of traditional lore as well as of Hebrew which the Targum displays ”

“ Perhaps no person, amongst the many individuals who have distinguished themselves by skill in the targumannic art, has more successfully surmounted this difficulty than Fairfax, the Translator into English “octave rhyme” of “The Jerusalem,” the master-piece of the greatest poet of modern Italy and, with one exception, of modern time. ”

“ The versions give us but little assistance in clearing the difficulties of the text. In the Targum of Jonathan there is a remarkable gloss which should be mentioned, and from which it will appear that the Targumist supposed that the daughter of Jephthah was actually sacrificed: "And he fulfilled the vow which he had vowed upon her; and she knew no man: and it was made a statute in Israel, that no man should offer his son or his daughter for a burnt-offering, as did Jephthah the Gileadite, who did not consult Phinehas the priest ”

“ We have already seen that the cubit of Moses, or of the ancient Hebrews, was longer than the Babylonish by one palm; see on [87] (note) . It might be the same with the measures of capacity; so that two thousand of the ancient Jewish baths might have been equal to three thousand of those used after the captivity. The Targum cuts the knot by saying, "It received three thousand baths of dry measure, and held two thousand of liquid measure.
Verse 6
He made also ten lavers - The lavers served to wash the different parts of the victims in; and the molten sea was for the use of the priests. ”

“ He is also cited by name in the Palestinian Pireḳe de-R. Eli'ezer, xxxviii. ↑ Bibliography of the Targum אזנקלזם— (A) There are very fine MSS. of this Targum at Parma, Oxford, Cambridge (Dd. 11, 26, Add. 446, 1053) , the British Museum, Kissingen (Rabbin Bamberger) , &c. ⁠ (B) A Massoreth on our Targum by an anonymous author, who must have lived in or before the 12th century, has been published— (1) by Luzzatto (Oṣar Neḥmad, iv.) ; (2) by Adler (Vilna edition of the Pentateuch of 1874) ; and (3) by Berliner (with a German translation, &c., Leipsic, 1877, 8vo) . ”

“ Neat cattle, in different districts.
6. Camels and asses: they had no horses.
7. Flocks, sheep, goats, etc.
Verse 34
And after Ahithophel - The Targum is curious: "When they went to war, they asked counsel of Ahithophel; and, after the counsel of Ahithophel, they inquired by Urim and Thummim of Jehoiada, the son of Benaiah, prince of the Sanhedrin, and chief of the priesthood; and from Abiathar, the high priest. And after they had inquired by Urim and Thummim, they went out to battle, well armed with bows and slings; and Joab, the general of the king's troops, led them on." ”

“ See Wolf. Curae Philol. in N.T. on [672] , [673] . - L. The water is Divine knowledge, says Kimchi, and the wells the teachers of righteousness. The Targum renders this in a very remarkable manner: "Ye shall receive with joy (אולפן חדת ulephan chadath) a new doctrine from the chosen among the righteous." Does not this mean the Gospel, the new covenant? And did not the Targumist speak as a prophet?
Verse 1
Though thou wast angry "For though thou hast been angry" - The Hebrew phrase, to which the Septuagint and Vulgate have too closely adhered, is exactly the same with that of St. ”

“ John Hasfeldt wrote to Borrow, June 1837, apropos of the project: “You know the Russian priesthood cannot suffer foreigners to mix themselves up in the affairs of the Orthodox Church. The same would have happened to the New Testament itself. You may certainly print in the Manchu-Tartar or what the d-l you choose, only not in Russian, for that the long-bearded he-goats do not like.”
[142a] Letter to Rev. F. Cunningham, 27th/29th Nov. 1834.
[142b] The principal interest in Targum lies in the number of languages and dialects from which the poems are translated ”

“ The versions are as follow: - The Targum, or Chaldee, the same in each place as the Hebrew.
The Syriac in [184] has four hundred thousand young men for the army of Abijah, and eight hundred thousand stout youth for that of Jeroboam. For the slain Israelites, in [185] , it has five hundred thousand, falsely translated in the Latin text quinque milia, five thousand, both in the Paris and London Polyglots: another proof among many that little dependence is to be placed on the Latin translation of this version in either of the above Polyglots. ”