Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch 9781463208486

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THE TABGUMS OP

ONKELOS AND JONATHAN BEN U Z Z I E L

ON THE PENTATEUCH.

LEVITICUS, NUMBERS, AND DEUTERONOMY.

BT

J. W . ETHERIDGE, M.A.

THE TARGUMS Of

ONKELOS AND JONATHAN BEN UZZIEL ON THE

PENTATEUCH;

"WITH T H E F R A G M E N T S

JERUSALEM

OF T H E

TARGUM

FROM THE CHALDEE

BY

J. W . E T H E E I D G E , translator

or

ttfk

new

testament

from

M.A. the

peschito

sybiac.

LEVITICUS, NUMBERS, AND DEUTERONOMY.

" THIS p r o v i s i o n , (the P a r a p h r a s e , ) m a d e b y m e n , w a s d i r e c t e d b y t h e B u l e r of P r o Y i d e n c o , i n H i s l o v e f o r t h e r e m n a n t of H i s p e o p l e , t o a f f o r d na s t a y a n d s t a l l i n H i s T o r a h , H i s l a w s a n d j n e c e p t a , t i l l t h e t i m e of t h o R e d e m p t i o n s h a l l a r r i v e , "wkon H o w i l l l a i s e L (>rn t h e d u s t t h e f a l l e n t a b e r n a c l e of D a v i d , a n d s a y t o t h e d a u g h t e r of Z i o n , A w a k e , a n s a . " MENDELSSOHN.

l GORGIAS

2005

p r e s s

First Gorgias Press Edition, 2005. The special contents of this edition are copyright 2005 by Gorgias Press LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Gorgias Press LLC, New Jersey. This edition is a facsimile reprint of the original edition published by Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1862-1865, London. ISBN 1-59333-183-5 (Set) ISBN 1-59333-186-X (Vol. 1) ISBN 1-59333-187-8 (Vol. 2)

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GLOSSARY OF

HIERATIC

AND

LEGAL

TERMS

IN THE

PENTATEUCH; ON THE BEST AUTHORITIES, CHRISTIAN AND RABBINICAL.

THE biblical title of the Mosaic writings most usually employed is H A TORAH, " the Law ; " from yarah, " to teach/' or " d i r e c t : " — " the Law of the Lord/' to assert its true origin and authority; and " the Law of Moses/' to denote the mediatorial agency by which it was given to mankind. The common conventional title, " the Pentateuch/' is a combination of the Greek words, " a volume/' and irhre, " f i v e ; " " the Fivefold Book which corresponds with the Rabbinical appellation of Chamishah ChumesJie haltorah, " the Five Fifths of the Law." Whether this division was made by the author, or the entire work was composed by him in one continuous treatise, cannot be fully ascertained. The five books, as we now classify them, are not distinguished in the original Hebrew by any other specific titles than the initial words. Thus Genesis, from its first word, is called Bereshith, " In the beginning;" Exodus, Ve Mleh Shemoth, " These are the names;" Leviticus, Vaiyikra, " And he called ; " Numbers, Vaidabler, " And he spoke," with the current title of Bemidlar, " I n the wilderness;" while Deuteronomy takes its name from the first two words, Mlel lladdeB

2

GLOSSARY.

barim, " These are the words," or Sepher Deharim, " the Book of the Words." The general contents of the Pentateuch are,—1. Historical ; 2. Legislative. In Genesis the Historical details are given in successive sections called Toledoth, ai yevéaeis, histories, especially of the origin of persons or things, from yalad, " to create/' or " bring forth." Thus we have the toledoth of the heavens and the earth, from the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis, to the sixth verse of the second chapter. These are followed by the toledoth of Adam, chap. v. 1 ; of Noah, vi. 9 ; of the first nations, 10, and the first empire, 1 1 : after which come the toledoth of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, to the end. I n the following books the history, no longer biographical, takes a broader character, and describes the development of the Hebrew nation as such, from the Exodus to the death of Moses. The greater portion of the Pentateuch, however, from the middle of the second to the end of the fifth book, is a digest of the Laws of the Jewish Dispensation, ethical, ritualistic, and secular. The last book condenses both the history and the legislation, by a summary which culminates in a marvellous grandeur of prophecy, whose words of warning and benedictions of grace become, for all time, a Divinely spoken attestation to the Torah as a Eevelation from God. This is all that needs to be said here on the structure of the work at large; my design in these introductory pages being restricted to the simple object expressed at the head,—a brief explication of the terminology of the Pentateuch, and not a hermeneutic study of its several parts, for which I refer the student to the learned volumes of Graves and Macdonald, Baehr and Fairbairn, Havernick, Hengstenberg, and the commentators in general. Nor have I entered even on the question of

3

GLOSSARY.

the authenticity of the works of the Hebrew legislator, about which we have had within the last three years many able treatises, contributing to set that most important truth upon a foundation not more sure than it was before, but more evidently sure to us. The genuineness of the Mosaic writings, the credibility of their contents, and the ^Divine inspiration which is their source, are now more firmly believed in than ever; a result which all who reverence the Bible as the "Word of God must rejoice in, however they may deplore the painful circumstances which gave occasion to the controversy, or the wavering of too many, shaken by scepticism, through the influence of one-sided objections, who would have stood firm had they sought and found the support which always comes to the sincere and impartial inquirer with the full knowledge of the truth. In the arrangement of these terms and phrases of the Pentateuch, to avoid the dryness of a mere alphabetic vocabulary, I have grouped them under the various subjects to which they relate, with a slight tissue of connecting remarks, which may serve at once to render them a little more readable, and conduce to their elucidation. I.

THE

DIVINE

MIES.

THE holy Pentateuch opens with a sentence which combines the majesty and simplicity of a Divine oracle : " In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth;" a sentence whose few but sublime words throw the first beam of light on the otherwise inscrutable mystery of existence, and lead us up to the fountain and cause of created being, in God, its Author and End. I . The name E L O H I M is the plural form of El or B

2

4

GLOSSARY.

Eloha, the ground-form of which some think they find in the Hebrew root alah, " to swear/' i. q., a God in covenant: some, that it lies in the cognate Arabic root alalia, " to worship," or " adore/' from which are formed alike the Arabian name of Allah and the Hebrew Eloha, the Being who alone is adorable: but others, deriving it from the abstract noun El, or Ul, consider Elohim to be an appellation of the Omnipotent; the name of a Being whose will concentrates all power in itself. El Elohim in their view is equivalent to o ®eo9 iayvpoK, or IJavTOKpaTa>p, " the Almighty G o d . "

Yet to Him who is of necessity One, is here given, and by His own dictate, a plural appellation. This phenomenon, which occurs in a multitude of places in the Old Testament, is explained as being a mere adaptation to the usual style of royalty ;—yoluralis majestatis, vel eoccellentia. According to this view it does not indicate a plurality of Persons m the Deity, but the multiform and all-comprising perfection of the One God; the index of physical and moral majesty in their highest expression. When, therefore, we read such words as, "Elohim said, Let us make man in Our I m a g e ; " (G en. i. 2 6 o r , " Behold, the man is become as one of U s ; " (Gen. iii. 2 2 ; ) the formula is to be understood after the manner in which we read the plural in a proclamation of one of the kings of the earth. But the insufficiency of this explanation is apparent in the fact, that Elohim is used not only with plural pronouns in the first person, as in the texts quoted, but with plural adjectives, (Elohim Jcerobim, " near Gods," Deut. iv. 7 ; chayim, " living Gods," Jer. x. 1 0 ; Jcedoshim, " holy Gods," Joshua xxiv. 19,) and in concord with plural verbs in the third person. (Gen. xx. 13 : Eithu Elohim othi, " The Gods caused me to wander." Gen. xxxv. 7 : Night, elaif ha-Elohim, " The

GLOSSARY.

5

Gods were revealed to him." See also Gen. xxxi. 53.) 1 When we read in some royal proclamation such words as, " We have decreed," the form of the pronoun being usual on the lips of a king makes no hindrance to our perception that the words are those of an individual; but when we read, " The kings have decreed," we are obliged, by the common sense of language, to understand more kings than one. But such is the combination of the nominative and the verb in the texts just cited. The Bible, did it contain no other intimation on the mystery of the Triune Nature, by combining this plural name of the Deity with a singular verb, as in Gen. i. 1, or with another Divine name in the singular, as " Jehovah Elohiin," or M Mohim, would not fail to suggest the conception of a nature in which simplicity or unity of essence is characterized by a plurality of Persons. The modern Jewish theologians, in their wish to keep at the greatest distance from the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, have diverged in some instances, and this among them, from the belief of their ancient predecessors. The Jewish people, at the Christian epoch, and for a long time after it, though steadfast as any of their descendants in the doctrine of the Divine unity, were nevertheless habituated to the idea of a personal plurality in Him whose name is Elohiin. Considering the four Christian Gospels merely as authentic contemporary history, we have in them important documentary evidence of the state of public opinion and religious belief among that people eighteen hundred years ago. In reading the various discourses and colloquies which have a record on those pages, can we suppose that when Jesus Christ told the people of the willingness of 1

We could refer to the plural form m Eccles. xii 1 . " Remember thy Creators :" but the reading there is precarious, as many good MSS. have the singular.

6

GLOSSARY.

"the Father" to give "the Holy Spirit" to those who ask Him, He used terms which were not already familiar to them ? So when He spoke with Nicodemus of " the Spirit" as the Regenerator, and of God so loving the world as to give His only begotten Son for its redemption, or when the Baptist discoursed of the love which the Father hath for the Son, did these sacred appellations fall for the first time upon their ears? In truth the formula Ab, Ben, ve Ruach ha Kailosh, "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," was theirs before it was ours. It developed the sense of what they read in their Scriptures of One who is the Father (Mai. ii. 10;) of One who is the Son; (Prov. xxx. 4;) and of One who is the Spirit of Holiness. (Psalm li. 1 1 ; cxxxix. 7 ; Isaiah xlviii. 16.) They had a term which corresponds to our technical word " Trinity," namely, Shilosh, and in Aramaic TaUthuiho; and in some of their earliest post-biblical literature the doctrine intimated by that term has a categorical expression as distinct as any that are found in the creeds of the church.2 2

I may refer, for examples, to the passages ill the Zohar, where t i e Shema, or confession of t h e Divine Unity, (Deut. vi. 4,) is explained upon Trinitarian principles. " Hear, O I s r a e l . Jehovah our God is one Jehovah. B y t h e first name in this sentence, Jehovah, is signified God the Father, the Head of all things. B y t h e next words, our God, is signified God the Son, the fountain of all knowledge; and by t h e second Jehovah is signified God the Holy Ghost, proceeding of t h e m both. To all which is added the word One, to signify that these three are Indivisible. But this mystery shall not be revealed until t h e coming of Messiah." So t h e Trisagion, or angels' song, in Isai. vi. is expounded m t h e same way. " Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth. Isaiah, by repeating Holy three times, does as much as if he had said, Holy Father, Holy Son, and Holy S p i r i t ; which three Holies do m a k e but one only Lord God of Sabaoth." The sacred dogma itself is t h u s laid d o w n : " Come and see t h e mystery. There are three degrees (in E l o h i m ) ; and each degree is by itself [balchudi] ; nevertheless [_aph ali a g ] all are one ; all united in unity, and this inseparable from t h a t . " [Zohar, cap. 3. Compare the Jezirah, i. 35.) The Zohar gives a

GLOSSARY.

7

I I . JEHOVAH, M R R \ In this holy and awful Name, as the revealed appellation of the Self-Existing, AllSufficient, and Unchangeable Being, we possess the germ and principle of all true theology. The Hebrewdivines call it, by emphasis, Ila Shem, THE N A M E ; with the reverential epithets of S/iema Rabha, " the Great Name; " Shew, shel arba othioth, " the Name of Eour Letters ; " (the Greek Tefragramma;) Shem ha-eUem, " the very N a m e ; " Shem hammeyochad, " the one, singular, or peculiar N a m e ; " and Shem hammephorash, " the Name of Manifestation," as making the Divine Nature known; (from pharask, " to explain;") or, in the meaning which that verb bears in Aramaic of being separate or distinguished,—" the Name which is especially sacred." The reverence and godly fear with which this Divine title is regarded, have among the Jews for two thousand years made it a name for the thought, rather than the tongue; and the silence of so many ages, in the disuse of it as a vocable, has been followed by the absolute loss of its true pronunciation. The averseness to the use of the Name by the voice was at an early period strengthened by the view taken of the third commandment, as not only forbidding perjury and blasphemy, but also the light and indiscriminating pronunciation of the Holy Name in common conversation; and by conclusions from the case in Levit. xxiv. 11-16, where the sin of the man was thought to have consisted not only in his blaspheming the Name, but in pronouncing it. See the Targums on the place. The influence of this feeling showed itself in the habit of refraining from the curious, but of course defective, illustration from the human voice, which is one thing, though formed by the union of three elements,— warmth, vapour, and air. The passage, which contains some good dogmatic definitions, may be found on p. 18 of the Sulzbach edition, and p. 43 of that of Amsterdam.

8

GLOSSARY.

common use of the Name, except in worship, and in pious salutations ; (Berakotk, iii. 5 ;) and then of restricting the utterance of it to the lips of the priest in the public services of religion. Thus, in pronouncing the trinal blessing, (Num. vi.,) the priest " might make utterance of the Name according to its writing." (Shem hammephorash hi-hetJiabo.—Talmud, Sotah, vii. 6 ; Tamid, vii. 2.) When the high priest pronounced it in the service of the day of Atonement, the people fell prostrate oil the ground. (Mishna, Yoma, vi. 2.) So that hitherto the use of it was not absolutely forbidden, but the abuse only. But the exaggeration of the sentiment led at last to the final cessation of the use itself. After the time of the high priest Shemeon Hazaddik, it ceased to be spoken. I t was heard in the temple for the last time from his mouth. Henceforward whoever should attempt to pronounce it was to have no part in the world to come. {Sanhédrin, x, 1.) The consequence has been an utter oblivion of the orthoepy of the Name, not only in its oral sound, but in its grammatical vocalization ; a defeet which has caused not a little embarrassment as to the precise composition and import of the appellation. The four antique consonants remain, like an immutable symbol of the Divine Being ; but the manner in which they are vocalized, from the peculiar nature of the Hebrew language, will greatly modify the signification. And perhaps no name has been subjected to so many experiments for some past time as the sacred one before us, for which the following modes of expression have been severally contended for:—YeHeYeH, YeHVeH, YaHYeH, YaHaYaH, YaHaYeH, YeHoYaH. After these we cease to wonder at the diversities in the Greek and other ethnic forms of the name ; as Aia, Iaco, laße, Ievco, Aios, Jovis, and Jova.

GLOSSARY.

9

But amid all these variations as to the mode in which it should be syllabled, the real meaning of the name is not seriously obscured. The basis of it stands sure, in the Hebrew verb hayah, " to be ; " a verb of which there are two forms, hayah and havah} the latter being the more ancient. It is that which appears in the name Jehovah; a circumstance which should be taken into account in examining one of the questions of the day on the antiquity of the name. Now, of the preterite hayah or havah, " H e was," the third person future, masculine, is Yihyeh, or Yihveh, " He will b e ; " a form, of the verb which certainly gives that of the title YHYH. In this point of view, as predicating futurity of existence, it is held to express, in the third person, " H e will be;" that which the Almighty affirmed of Himself (Exod. lii. 14) in the first person, Ehyeh, " I will be." But the futurity of existence here proclaimed is not that of one who is only to be hereafter; it is the permanent existence of a Being who now Is, and who ever has Been. For the form Yihveh is held to be equivalent with Ye-havah, the prefix of the future combined with the preterite root, to indicate the permanence of One who has ever existed. He who Was and Is, is He who Will Be. The punctuation of the Name as Yehovah is an attempt to express the fulness of this truth, in aduniting the three elements of the verb " to Be." Thus Yehe, " He will b e ; " Hoveh, « He is; " Havah, " He was." So in the Apocalypse the Deity is named as o rjv, KCU O WV, icai o ipxpfMevos, (Rev. iv. 8,) " He who was, and who is, and who is to come," or " to be, still; " in Hebrew, Hu haveh, hu hoveh, vehu yehveh. Hence the name Yehovah has always been considered as the peculiar and incommunicable title of the Being who is self-existent, allsufficient, and unchangeable. In the Tetragramma B

5

10

GLOSSARY.

there is a concentration of all the Divine attributes; for He who is the self-existent must be self-sufficient, and therefore infinitely blessed, benevolent, and just; omniscient, because spiritual in His nature, and everywhere present, as existing absolutely; boundless in power as in presence; immutable, inhabiting eternity. The Masorites punctuated the name Jehovah with the vowels of »J'IK Adonai ; thus, rnrr\ But when the two titles, Jehovah and Adonai, occur in the Bible in apposition, the former is pointed with the vowels of as in Hab. iii. 19: The authors of the Septuagint Version, under the influence of the Palestinian feeling with regard to the Holy Name, do not give it a literal expression, but render it by o Kvpios, " t h e L o r d ; " and Yehovah Elohim by Kvptos o @eo?. The old Syriac Yersion for Yehovah employs the title Mario, " the Lord." The Syrians considered this name with its four letters M.B.I.A. to correspond with the Hebrew Tetragram, n w ; and the letters themselves as the initials of words symbolical of the Divine Nature j the first, m, standing for morutho, " dominion; " the second, r, for ralbutho, " majesty," or " greatness;" the third and fourth, i, a, for aithutho, " essential being." Mono, " The Lord," is distinguished from the common form of Mar, " a lord," and is never used but as an appellation of the Deity. In the Clialdee Targums Yehovah is always expressed by Yeya. I I I . E H E Y B H ¿SHER. E H E Y E H . Exod. iii. 14 : " A n d God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM. Thus shall thou say to the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me to you." 15 : " And God said yet to Moses, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, Jehovah the God of your Fathers hath sent me to you. This is My Name for ever, and this is My Memorial for all genera-

GLOSSARY.

11

tions." I t will be seen that Jehovah in the fifteenth verse is used synonymously with Eheyeh asher Eheyeh in the fourteenth; and that in the latter title is to be found the Divine exposition of the former one. Grammatically Eheyeh is the first person singular future of hayah, " he w a s / ' — " I Will Be : " but some good Hebrew divines believe that the word, as here used, consists of the preterite hayah, " he was/' with the first person prefix a , the initial and representative of the pronoun Anoehi, I—rrrrx E-heyeh; as if He had said, " I Am He who hath been ; " or, " I, who have been, Am He who Is." This, then, like the Tetragramma, is an incommunicable Name of the Unchangeable because Self-Existent O n e ; or, as Maimonides interprets the Divine words, " the Being who is B E I N G , that is, a Being who must of necessity B e ; for that which exists of necessity must have existed evermore." And to the same effect the exposition given by the metaphysical theologian Eabbi Joseph Albo: " I Am the Cause of My own Being, and the First Cause of all other: for all other being is, not because it is, but because I AM." The Almighty made here this announcement of His unchangeableness, to give greater stress to His now revealed purpose to deliver Israel from bondage, and to redeem them into the liberty of His people. " I Am for ever; and therefore am able to fulfil My promises." So, in the sixth chapter of Exodus, the Name of the Immutable Jehovah, though known already in an imperfect manner by the patriarchs, is now to be known for the first time as that of Israel's COVENANT GOD, whose purposes, though they require the lapse of ages and millenniums for their full unfoldment, are the purposes of One with whom a thousand years are as a day.

12

GLOSSARY.

The Septuagint translates Eheyeh by, 'Ejco eifii 6 a>v, " I am the Existent." Onkelos leaves the Hebrew untranslated; but the Palestinian Targum attempts a paraphrase : " He who spake, and the world was ; who spake, and all things were. And He said, This shalt thou say to the sons of Israel, I Am He who Is, and who Will Be, hath sent me unto you." The Jerusalem Targum has,—"And the Word of the Lord said to Mosheh, He who spake to the world, Be, and it was; and who will speak to it, Be, and it will be. And He said, Thus shalt thou speak to the sons of Israel, Eheyeh hath sent me unto you." IV. E L SHADDAI. (Gen. xvii. 1.) There are two leading opinions on the ground and meaning of this name. One, that it is derived from the noun dai, " plenitude " or " abundance," and, combined with the personal prefix sh, (the abbreviation of asher, " who,") denotes the all-sufficiency of God, El sh'dai. Bat the more generally received derivation makes it come from shad, " power," " force," especially that which is overwhelming, {shadad,) irresistible, like the hurricane, or the rising tide of the ocean. El Shaddai is " t h e Almighty God," " the Omnipotent." Shaddai is the pluralis majestatis ; and in most of the texts in which it occurs is no doubt rightly rendered by " the Almighty." The Septuagint translates it sometimes by ©eot; (Gen. xlix. 25;) sometimes by o 'Iicavos, " the Sufficient;" (Euth i. 20, 21;) but more commonly by IJavTo/cpdrcop, " the Almighty." Onkelos retains the Hebrew ; the Syriac has El Shaddai Aloha ; and the Samaritan Version, in Gen. xvii. 1, Anah Chiulah Sajmkah, " I am the Mighty, the Sufficient." It may be remarked that the first revelation of this name to Abraham is joined with a command to walk before God and to be perfect; a command which, fallen

GLOSSARY.

13

humanity can only obey by the effectual grace of the All-Sufficient Being who gives it. Compare Isai. xl. 28, 31. Y . A d o n a i , " The L o r d ; " (Gen. xv. 8 ;) either from dun, " to judge/' and so expressing the rectoral dominion of God, or from adon, (pointed eden,) " a basis," "foundation;" a title of the Divine Supporter and therefore Proprietor and Lord of all creation. [In Deut. xxxii. 4 God is called Ha Tsur, " the Hock," as the foundation and strength of created existence.] The form Adonai is considered to be the pluralls excellentia. It must be distinguished from Adoni, " my lord,'" the common title given to a superior. YI. H e l y o n " or E l y o n , the Most High; from halah or alah, " to ascend/' or " excel:" the Great Supreme, God over all. Gen. xiv. 22: El Helyon honeh shammayim va-areis, " God the most High, possessor of the heavens and earth." Onkelos, ffl Illaah. Jonathan, Eloha Illaha. Samaritan Yersion, "The Most Mighty." Septuagint, V^IO-TOS, Altissimus. Note. M e i i e , a d a Y e y a . Though this designation, peculiar to the Chaldee Targums, may not be classed with the Divine names as given in the Hebrew Scriptures, yet as it is often used in the. paraphrases as an equivalent for some one of them, it ought not to be omitted in the present conspectus. We have already offered some observations upon it in the Introduction to our first volume; and only add here a short supplement, by way of giving clearer definement and stronger corroboration to the doctrine there laid down. The term Memra is used in a variety of acceptations. It iss what the grammarians call verbum Tr6X.varjjj.ov, " a word of several meanings." 1. Memra has the sense of a mere articulate word or spoken declaration. In such

14

GLOSSARY.

places it generally wants the final aleph : memr, " a word/'' sermo, oratio, like pithgama or milla in Chaldee. 2. I t is used with the import of an emphatic pronoun. Thus, memri, " my word/'' equivalent to " I myself; " memreka, " thou thyself;" memrieh, " he himself." Example : " There is a covenant between me and thee." Kayema bein memri uvein memrika. So Gen. xxvi. 3 : " I will be witli thee." Targ. : Ve yehe memri be solidah : " And My word/' i. e., I Myself, " will be thy helper." 3. As a personal appellation, intensifying the idea of personality. It is then Memr a da Yeya, " t h e Word of the Lord," i. e., the Lord Himself. Exod. xix. 17 : " And Moses led forth the people to meet with God." Targum: Likdamoth Memra da Yeya, " to meet with the "Word of the Lord." So Exod. iii. 11, 12, 14 ; Gen. i. 2 7 ; xxviii. 21. But, 4.—and here is the point in question—It is used, we affirm, not only as a proper name, but as the proper name of one Person in the Godhead, as distinguished from another, so as to indicate in some degree the Targumist's perception of the mystery of a Personal Subsistence m the Divine nature, who is God with God, a second Person in the yet undivided Being of the One Jehovah. For the proof we adduce the following examples. (1.) Gen. xvi. 7 : Hebrew text: " A n d the Angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness And he said, Hagar, whence earnest thou, and whither wilt thou go ? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress. And the Angel of the Lord said to her, lie turn I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude And she called the name of Jehovah who spake to her, Thou God seest me : for she said, Have I also here looked after Him who seeth me ? Wherefore

GLOSSARY.

15

the well was called Beer laharoi, A well to the Living One who seeth me." Targum of Palestine: " And the Angel of the Lord found her at the fountain of waters in the desert And he said, Hagar,...whence comest thou, and whither dost thou go ? And she said, Prom before my mistress have I fled. And the Angel of the Lord said to her, Return....Multiplying I will multiply thy sons, and they shall not be numbered for multitude And she gave thanks before the Lord, whose Memra spake to her, and thus said, Thou art He who livest and art Eternal; who seest, but art not seen: for she said, Here is revealed the glory of the Shekinah of the Lord after a vision." [Jerusalem Targum: " And Hagar gave thanks and prayed in the Name of the Memra of the Lord, who had been manifested to her, saying, Blessed be Thou., Eloha, the Living One of Eternity, Wherefore she who hast looked upon my affliction called the well, The well at which the Living and Eternal One was revealed."] Here Hagar sees God, and the Memra, in one. But in the Memra she sees the Angel of the Lord, i. e., one who is sent. A person cannot be described as sending himself: but God sends the Memra : the Memra is therefore God, but God in a second personality. (2.) Exod. xxxiii. 2 1 : " A n d the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by Me, and thou slialt stand upon a rock. And it shall come to pass, while My glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with My hand, while I pass by." Targ. Palest.: " Thou shalt stand upon the rock: and it shall be that when the glory of My Shekinah passeth before thee, I will put thee in a cavern of the rock, and I will overshadow thee with My Memra, until the time that I have passed by." The distinction here

16

GLOSSARY.

is plain. The Memra overshadows Moses while Jehovah. passes by. (3.) Nurn xxiii. 4 : Hebrew text: "And God met Bileam." Targ. Palest.: " And the Memra from before the Lord met Bileam." Conf. Onkelos in loc. and the margin. (4.) Of the Angel whom the Lord promises Moses (Exod. xxiii. 20) to send before the people to be their guide and protector through the wilderness, He says, "Observe him, and obey his voice: for My Name

is in him : " ki Shemi bekirbo, " quia Nomen Meum in interiori ejus est; " and therefore some of the rabbins identify the Angel with Shaddai. See Jarchi in loco. In this view, " My Name is in him,'" is equivalent with " My Nature or Essence is in him." He is the Divine Angel; Malak habberith, " the Angel of the Covenant ; " Malak Tiaggoel, " the Angel the Redeemer." But in the Targums this Angel is identified with the Memra. Thus, in Deut. xxxi. 6, Moses, referring to the promise of the heavenly Guide, bids the Israelites cast away all fear of their enemies ; where the Targum reads, " Pear them not: for the Memra of the Lord thy God will be the Leader before thee." And in Joshua v. 14, 15, the Being who had the appearance of a man, as He spake with the Hebrew captain, but whose presence made the ground on which He stood " holy ground," says to him, (according to the Targum,) " I am the Angel sent from the presence of God And Joshua fell upon his face, and adored." " This Angel," says Moses Ben Nachman, " is the Angel Redeemer, of whom it is written, ' Eor My Name is m him/ He is the Angel who said to Jakob, ' I am the God of Bethel;' He it is of whom it is said, f God called to Moses out of the bush/ For it is written, ' Jehovah brought us up out of Egypt ' and elsewhere, ' He

17

GLOSSARY.

sent His Angel, and brought us up out of Egypt/ Again it is written, 'And the Angel of His Presence saved t h e m ; ' that Angel, namely, who is the Presence of God, of whom it is said, 'My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.' Finally, this is the Angel of whom the prophet speaks, ' He whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Angel of the Covenant whom ye delight in.'" In the passage quoted here by the Rabbi, from Isaiah lxiii. 8, 9, the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel identifies the Angel with the Memra, sent to redeem and to save. The comment of Philo is equally remarkable: " God, as the Shepherd and King, conducts all things according to law and righteousness, having established over them " Tov opdov avrov \oyov,

Trparoyovov

viov,

ee

His

true Word (and) Only Begotten Son, who, as the Yiceroy of the great King, protects and ministers to this sacred flock. Por it is said, Behold, I am: I will send My angel before thy face to keep thee in the way." (De Agricult.,

Opp., i., 308.)

Taking these passages into consideration, it seems difficult to arrive at any other conclusion than that the doctrine of the Targum on this subject is the same as that of St. John : " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was GOD." Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel are witnesses to such a faith existing in the pre-apostolic times; and Philo of Alexandria, when discoursing with such amplitude upon the Logos, writes not as a mere Platonic philosopher, but as a believer in the traditional theology of his forefathers. The germ of this article of their faith they found in their canonical Scriptures. See the texts in our Introduction to the first volume of this work, p. 24.

18

GLOSSARY.

II. N O T I C E S O F " T H E . M E S S I A H

IN T H E PENTATEUCH.

THE first promise given by God to fallen man was the promise of a Saviour. It speaks of Him as " the seed of the woman,"—zarah, her " offspring." Eva saw in the birth of her first son a pledge of the fulfilment of the promise, and said, " I have obtained a man from the Lord." Onkelos : " I have obtained the Man from before the Lord." Syriac : " I have obtained the Man of the Lord : " Kanith Gabro la-Morio. Eor the scriptural comments on the promise and its antecedents, compare John viii. 4 4 ; 1 John iii. 8 ; 1 Cor. xv. 47. This first promise, though veiled in enigma, was plain enough to banish despair and kindle new hope : it sank deep into the human breast, and the children of Adam carried it with them in all their wanderings. I t is well called the Proto-Evangelium, the Primary Gospel. I t was comparatively obscure; for we expect not the splendour of the meridian hour to come at early dawn : but, as time passed, new revelations contributed to clear it up, " While light on light, and ray oil ray, Successive brighten'd mto day."

Even in the Pentateuch we witness such a progression. 1. The first promise merely declared that the Destroyer of the serpent should be a man. 2. In the prophecy of Noah, (Gen. ix. 26, 27,) there is a presumptive implication, that of the three races who were to descend from that patriarch, the expected One would spring from that of Shem. 3. Among the Shcmitic nations, that which would have Abraham for their ancestor was to be the favoured people, who should claim Him as their kinsman. (Gen. xii. 1 - 3 ; xviii. 18 j xxii. 18;—hezareha, " i n thy seed."

GLOSSARY.

19

Compare Gen. xxvi. 4 ; Acts iii. 2 5 ; Gal. iii. 8, 9, 16, 18.) Then, 4. Of the tribes into which the Abrahamic nation was divided, Judah's would be that from which the Lord was to arise : Gen. xlix. 1 0 ; where Shibh is a name of the Messiah. Some modern Jewish interpreters make it, indeed, the name of the place so called, and put it in the dative, rendering ad hi yavo Shiloh, "until/'' or " even thbugh, they come to Shiloh." But this does violence to the very grammar of the words. Shiloh is the nominative, and the verb yavo is in the singular, " h e shall come." The Targums translate Shiloh by " the King Messiah;" and the Palestine one describes Him as " a son of Jehudah." The Talmud (Sanhedrin) takes the same view. So does Abravanel in his commentary on the text; and that found in the Zohar lays down the same doctrine, with the addition that the letter i, yod, (the initial of Jehovah,) in the name, indicates that the Messiah will be a Divine person. The name Shiloh signifies " the Maker of Peace." 5. As a Priest, the Messiah is typified in Aharon, who had the title of Kohen ha Mashiach, " t h e Anointed Priest." 6. As a Prophet, in Moses, Deut. xviii. 15-18. The Jewish application of this prediction to the succession of prophets at large is utterly opposed to the terms of the text, all of them in the singular number. " A prophet, from the midst of thee" kamoni, "like myself, will the Lord thy God raise up unto thee : him shall ye hear." So also in the Divine promise : " A prophet," ItamoTta, " like thee will I raise up ; and I will put My word in his mouth, and he shall speak," &c. But it is also written that "among all the prophets that followed Moses, no one was like h i m ; " and as the great national deliverer, the mediator of an alliance with God, a legis-

20

GLOSSARY.

lator who established a dispensation of religion, and as the head of the body ecclesiastical, no prophet could arise like Moses, till He came who is the Wisdom and the Word of God. (John i. 17, 1 8 ; Luke ix. 2 9 - 3 6 ; Acts iii. 22.) 7. As a King, he is symbolized by the star and the sceptre in the propheoy of Balaam, Num. xxiv. 1 7 - 2 é . Onkelos: " W h e n a king shall arise from Jacob, and the Messiah become great in Israel." So, foo, Eben Ezra, who says that many Hebrew commentators agree in explaining it of the Messiah. I n the great revolt of the Jews in Hadrian's time, their leader, the pretended Messiah Barkokab, derived his prestige from that assumed name of " the Son of the Star," in allusion to this very prophecy; fulfilled typically and partially by David's victories over Edom and Moab; but only really and Divinely in the world-saving victory and blessed reign of Him " who is the Root and Offspring of David, and the bright and morning Star."

III. NAMES OP HEATHEN GODS IN THE PENTATEUCH. Wohim acherim. Onkelos, Elaha ocharan. ©eol erepoi. (Exod. xx. 3.) Baal or Bahal, Chai. Behel, or, the guttural omitted, Bel j most commonly used with the article, Ha-Baal, to distinguish the name of the god from the ordinary term baal, " a lord," or "master." (Num. xxii. 4 1 ; Deut. iv. 3.) Baal was the sun-god of the Phenicians, Canaanites, and Babylonians, and was worshipped as the productive power of nature. The plural Baalim denotes either the images of the god, or the various properties attributed to him. The name Baal is sometimes put not only for the sun, but also for the planet Jupiter, and

GLOSSARY.

21

is then joined with Gad, the designation of that star in the oriental astronomy. So, too, in the Zabian mythology Jupiter takes the name of Bel. Ashtoreth (the Astarte of the Greeks) was the feminine producing power of nature. As the masculine power was recognised and adored in the sun, so the moon was the symbol of Ashtoreth. The name Ashtoroth Karnaim in Gen. xiv. 5, " the two horned Asldoreths," carries evident reference to the moon as she appears in the early nights of the month. As Baal is connected with the planet Jupiter, so Ashtoreth, among the SyroPhenicians, had a similar relation to that of Venus. Peor, Pehor, or Baal Pehor : LXX., BeeXfaycop : worshipped by the Moabites and Midianites with licentious practices. (Num. xxv. 1 - 9 ; Deut. iv. 3.) The Rabbins give an obscene meaning to the name Peor; but others, as Gesenius, derive it from an old verb, still retained in Ethiopic, signifying to " serve " or " worship." Chemosh, Kemosh, Xafico, (Num. xxi. 29,) is considered to be another name for the idol Pehor. The etymology is hopeless. A black star was used as the symbol of Chemosh, which seems to give him a connexion with the planet Saturn. Moloh, or Ha-MoleJc, literally " the ruling one/ 5 from malah, " to reign;" and so rendered in the Septuagint by the appellatives o apxwv and fiaaiXeik, as well as by the retained Hebrew name, with the spelling of Mo\o%. From the similar meaning of the name with that of Baal, " a sovereign," or " lord," Molek is regarded as another epithet for the same deity,—the Ruler of Existence; but as manifesting his dominion in the destruction of life, a phase of character opposite to that of Eaiaal, the Sovereign Producer. Hence the worship of Molek was solemnized with fatal rites. The parent surrendered the life of his offspring, and burned his own child as a liolo-

22

GLOSSARY.

caust. (Lev. xviii. 2 1 ; xx. 1 - 5 ; Jer. xix. 5 ; Ezek. xvi. 20.) The names of MalchamwcAMilhom (Amos v. 26; 1 Kings xi. 5 ; Zeph. i. 5 ; Acts vii. 43) are variations of Molek. In the astro-religious system of the Phoenicians the gloomy planet Saturn, " stella nocens," 3 was looked upon as his representative. Seirim, or Sehirim, " satyrs ; " (Lev. xvii. 7 ; ) literally, " hairy ones," " goats/' Onkelos and Syriac, Sheidin, " demons." LXX., ¡xdraioi, " vanities." S/iedim, "demons." (Deut. xxxii. 17.) So also Onkelos, Septuagint, and Syriac. The Arabic Version has Sheateen, " Satans." Besides these proper or descriptive names of the Gentile deities in the Pentateuch, there are several others employed as epithets of execration or contempt. JElilim, from elil, " of nought, vain, false, of nothing worth." Heiilim, from hebel, " a breath or vapour; something light or vain." (Deut. xxxii. 21.) Toeboth," abominations." (Deut. xxxii. 16.) Zarim, the same. Gillulim: (Deut. xxix. 17 :) probably from galal, " d u n g ; " hence the name is rendered in the margin by " dungy g o d s ; " Yulgate, sordes. S&i/cutsim, "abominations," (ibid.,) from shalcats, " to be filthy or loathsome." The visible representation of a god, a material idol, is designated in the Pentateuch by Pesel, " a graven or carved i m a g e ; " (Exod. xx. 4 ; ) from pasal, " to cut or hew." Onkelos, tselam, " a resemblance." The most common name in the Targums for idols is taavath, or taavan. Temunah: (Exod. xx. 4 : ) Onkelos, demuth, " simi3

LTJCAN, i . , 6 5 2 .

GLOSSARY.

23

litude/ J which well represents the meaning of the Hebrew. LXX., O/JLOLCO/MU. Semel, " a likeness," (similitude,) and Talnith, " a form or model,"—both in Deut. iv. 16. Onkelos, Tsura, " a t y p e ; " yXvirros, " a sculpture, or shaped form." Matselah, " a statue/ 5 from Natsah, " to stand firmly." (Deut. vii. 5.) Onkelos, Kama. This may be a denomination not only of an idol in human or other form, but also of an anointed stone or pillar of the well known class called Bcetylia. Chammanim, " sun images;" Lev. xxvi. 30, where Onkelos has chanisnesekun, " your monuments to the sun." " Delubra, statues solares, soli dicatce."— CASTEL. "Temples of the sun."—EBEN E Z R A . The German Jewish commentators, Mendelssohn, &c., prefer " sun columns, or obelisks." Ebon maskith, lapis speculationis. Onkelos, eben segida, " a stone for adoration ; " LXX., \i9o