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The Aramaic translation of Exodus in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan incorporates a Jewish tradition where the Israelite infants miraculously sang during the crossing of the Red Sea, a tradition which also appears in the Wisdom of Solomon.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 10:21
Deuterocanon
17 She rendered to holy men a reward of their toils. She guided them along a marvelous way, and became to them a covering in the daytime, and a starry flame through the night. 18 She brought them over the Red sea, and led them through much water; 19 but she drowned their enemies, and she cast them up from the bottom of the deep. 20 Therefore the righteous plundered the ungodly, and they sang praise to your holy name, O Lord, and extolled with one accord your hand that fought for them, 21 because wisdom opened the mouth of the mute, and made the tongues of babes speak clearly.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Pseudo Jonathan Exodus 15:2
Targum
2 Our strength and the (object of) our many praises, feared by all the ages, the Lord. He declared through his Memra and he was for me a redeeming God.” From their mother's breasts the sucklings would indicate with their fingers to their fathers and would say: “This is our God who had us suck honey from the rock and oil from the flint stone at the time when our mothers went out into the open country and gave birth to us and abandoned us there. He would send an angel who would bathe us and swaddle us. And now let us praise him, the God of our fathers, and let us extol him.” 3 The children of Israel said, “The Lord is a hero who wages our wars in every generation. He makes his strength known to his people, the house of Israel. The Lord is his name; like his name is his strength. May his name be blessed forever and ever!
Date: 300–1200 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Now, if we suppose that this tradition was already in use in the commentary on Exodus 15 as early as the 10th century BC, we immediately understand the content of Wisdom of Solomon 10:20-21: "They celebrated, Lord, your holy Name; they sang with one heart of your protective arm. For Wisdom opened the mouths of the mute! and made clear the tongues of the little ones. The author of the book is not the first to be inspired here by Psalm 8:3, and one cannot claim that Rabbinic exegesis depends on him. Rather, he indirectly attests to the antiquity of the correlation between Exodus 15 and Psalm 8, which Rabbinic literature will consistently exploit. It has been noted that his text develops while respecting the laws of Semitic parallelism. The two hemistichs of 20 present a case of synonymous parallelism. We can therefore ask if the same is not true for the two following ones. From then on, should the mute of verse 21 be taken literally, as if the miracles of the last times (compare Isaiah 35:6) were introduced in the context of the exodus, or in a broader sense? ..."
Pierre Grelot, “Sagesse 10,21 et le Targum de l'Exode,” Bib 42.1 (1961): 49–60.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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