Genesis 3:22

Hebrew Bible

21 The Lord God made garments from skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.

Onkelos Genesis 3:22

Targum

21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife vestments of honour upon the skin of their flesh, and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, Behold, man is become unique in the world by himself, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever;... 23 and the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from where he had been created.

 Notes and References

"... The Bible has the anthropomorphic 'as one of us to know good and evil.' Onkelos treats kehchad, usually translated 'as one,' as 'unique.' Ihe translator adds 'in the world' to explain where humans are unique. He treats, as does Saadiah, mimenu 'as us,' as if it were written memeno - referring only to humans: 'by (or, from] himself.' The two disconnect the word from what precedes it, and connect it to the following phrase. In essence, our targumist avoids an anthropomorphic scene where God might be speaking to others and saying that humans are like divine beings. Instead, the verse is telling us that humans are unique in that they have free will to choose between good and evil ..."

Drazin, Israel, and Stanley M. Wagner Onkelos on the Torah, Genesis: Understanding the Bible Text (p. 21) Gefen, 2006

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