Neofiti Exodus 1:19

Targum

17 But the midwives feared beforej the Lord, and they did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken with them but let the children live. 18 And the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them: “For what reason have you done this thing, that you have let the children live?” 19 And the midwives said to Pharaoh: “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous. Before the midwife comes to them, they pray before their Father in the heavens, and he answers them and they give birth.” 20 And the Lord dealt favorably with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew strong.

Matthew 6:9

New Testament

7 When you pray, do not babble repetitiously like the Gentiles because they think that by their many words they will be heard. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 So pray this way: “Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored, 10 may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

 Notes and References

"... the Fragments Targum was consciously composed as a collection of variants, by rabbis whose primary language (and whose community's primary language) had ceased - essentially since the Arabic conquests - to be Aramaic. It would be odd not to find later (sometimes esoteric) conceptions developed within it. On the other hand, we also may not assume that the Fragments Targum simply inflates prior developments such as are reflected in Neofiti, since the reference of Deuteronomy 33:24 does not appear there, although the haggadah does (in the Vatican manuscripts). In the same connection, it should be pointed out that the Targum called Pseudo-Jonathan, from the seventh century, does not preserve most of the references cited above, although it does present analogous renderings at Exodus 1:19; Deuteronomy 32:6, and an innovative usage at Deuteronomy 28:32, 33, where it is a question of praying to God with good works in one's hands for release in judgment. Clearly, as we come to later sources, there is a tendency both to embellish and to qualify the notion of God as 'father' ..."

Chilton, Bruce "God as ‘Father’ in the Targumim in Non-Canonical Literatures of Early Judaism and Primitive Christianity, and in Matthew" in Charlesworth, James H., and Craig A. Evans, (eds.) The Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical Interpretation (pp. 151-169) JSOT Press, 1993

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