Texts in Conversation
Exodus 4 presents a difficult scene where God tries to kill Moses without explanation. The Aramaic translation in Targum Onkelos changes this by identifying the attacker as the “Angel of the Lord” rather than God.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 4:24
Hebrew Bible
22 You must say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord has said, “Israel is my son, my firstborn, 23 and I said to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me,’ but since you have refused to let him go, I will surely kill your son, your firstborn!”’” 24 Now on the way, at a place where they stopped for the night, the Lord met Moses and sought to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off the foreskin of her son and touched it to Moses’ feet, and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.” 26 So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” referring to the circumcision.)
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Onkelos Exodus 4:24
Targum
22 And you shall say to Pharaoh, This is what the Lord says: Israel is My son, My firstborn. 23 And I say to you, Let My son go, so that he may worship before Me; and if you refuse to send him away, look, I will kill your son, your firstborn. 24 And on the way, at the lodging place, the Angel of the Lord met him and sought to kill him. 25 And Zipporah took a stone, and circumcised the foreskin of her son, and came near before him, and said, Because of the blood of this circumcision, let my husband be given back to me. 26 And when he had let him alone, she said, If not for the blood of this circumcision, my husband would have been condemned to die.
Date: 50–500 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... A strange incident occurs on the way to Egypt (verses 24–25). The angel of the Lord meets Moses and threatens to kill him (verse 24). Sepphōra intercedes by circumcising her son (verse 25), somehow averting her husband’s death. Biblical studies designates this among the more enigmatic pericopae in the Hebrew Bible. It is not even mentioned by Philo or Josephus, and takes on new meaning in LXX Exodus ... The subject is the ἄγγελος Κυρίου, “angel of the Lord.” This reading is affirmed by the Targums, Targum Neofiti I (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan has “destroying angel”; compare Jubilees 48:2 where it is Mastemah), though the Masoretic text reads יְהוָה and makes no mention of an “angel” ..."
Daniel M. Gurtner, Exodus: A Commentary on the Greek Text of Codex Vaticanus (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 230–231.
* 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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