Texts in Conversation
Exodus 3:7 depicts God as seeing and hearing Israel’s suffering, using human-like language. The Aramaic translation in Targum Onkelos changes this, replacing “seeing” with “was revealed” and “hearing” with “accepted.” This was a common change in the Targums that avoided language that described God with human form or actions.
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Exodus 3:7
Hebrew Bible
6 He added, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. 7 The Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. 8 I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a land that is both good and spacious, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the region of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Onkelos Exodus 3:7
Targum
6 And He said, I am the God of thy fathers; the God of Abraham, the God of Izhak, and the God of Jakob. And Mosheh bowed with his face; for he was afraid to look up to the glory of the Lord. 7 And the Lord said, The bondage of My people who is in Mizraim is verily disclosed before Me, and before Me is heard their cry on account of their toils; for their afflictions are disclosed before me; 8 and I have appeared to deliver them from the hand of the Mizraee, and to bring them up from that land, unto a land good and large, a land producing milk and honey, unto the place of the Kenaanaee, and the Hittaee, and the Amoraee, and the Perizaee, and the Hivaee, and Yevusaee.
Date: 100-200 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... One striking characteristic of the Targums is their treatment of anthropomorphic language in speaking of God. It is important to note that this is simply part of the Targumic approach to figurative language in general. We are not sure whether the biblical writers believed their language about God to be figurative, but it is certain that the targumists thought it was. (Some anti-anthropomorphism is implicit in Israelite religion - Exodus 20:4 - but becomes programmatic only in the late Second Temple period) For instance, when the biblical text says that God “sees,” the targumists often substitute some form of the root “to reveal, be manifest” ... The targumists treat the hearing of God somewhat differently. Sometimes they cast the verb into the passive ... In other cases, the verb “receive, accept” is used as a substitute, especially when the idea of “listening to” someone is uppermost. The Targums are not uniform in the ways they avoid figurative speech about God, nor do they always agree on which instances call for paraphrase ..."
Cook, Edward M.
"The Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the Targums" in Henze, Matthias (ed.) A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism
(pp. 92-117) William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012
* 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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