Texts in Conversation
In Numbers 12, Moses sees God and speaks with Him face to face, and this raises theological questions for translators who avoid physical descriptions of God. The Greek Septuagint and Aramaic Targum resolve this by referring to God’s “glory.”
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Numbers 12:8
Hebrew Bible
7 My servant Moses is not like this; he is faithful in all my house. 8 With him I will speak face to face, openly and not in riddles, and he will see the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” 9 The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he departed.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Numbers 12:8
Septuagint
7 My servant Moses is not so; he is faithful in all my house. 8 I will speak to him mouth to mouth in appearance, and not in riddles; and he has seen the glory of the Lord; and why were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? 9 And the great anger of the Lord was upon them, and he departed.
Date: 300–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Onkelos Numbers 12:8
Targum
7 But My servant Moses is different; he is trusted among all My people. 8 I speak with him directly; in a vision, not in riddles; and he shall see the likeness of the glory of the Lord. Why, then, is it that you have not been afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses? 9 And the displeasure of the Lord was strong against them, and He went up.
Date: 50–500 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... when God is the object, not the subject, of bodily actions, the targumists were faced with a problem. It was obvious that the human actions themselves could not be metaphorical; but the object of them had to be understood in a different way. when the Bible says that someone saw God, it is clear that they saw something, and that something had to be identifiable as God, without suggesting that God himself was visible in bodily form. One solution to this is to introduce God’s “glory”, understood as a visible bright light ... (Compare also the Septuagint and Targum Onkelos at Numbers 12:8) ..."
Edward M. Cook, “The Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the Targums,” in A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism, ed. Matthias Henze (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 92–117.
* 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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How are you dating the Masoretic text older than the Septuagint we don’t have the paleo Hebrew the original scriptures were written in. Why do you keep referring to modern Hebrew as the original text when the Septuagint is closer to the original Hebrew text you are lying
How are you dating the Masoretic text older than the Septuagint we don’t have the paleo Hebrew the original scriptures were written in. Why do you keep referring to modern Hebrew as the original text when the Septuagint is closer to the original Hebrew text you are lying