Texts in Conversation
Exodus 2 says that God heard the Israelites’ groaning, using language that suggests human-like perception. The Aramaic translation in Targum Onkelos changes this to remove the language of direct sensory experience.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 2:24
Hebrew Bible
23 During that long period of time the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites groaned because of the slave labor. They cried out, and their desperate cry because of their slave labor went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning; God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the Israelites, and God understood.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Onkelos Exodus 2:24
Targum
23 And after many days the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel groaned under the hard service that was upon them; and their cry from their labor went up before the Lord. 24 And their appeal was heard before the Lord; and the Lord remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 And the servitude of the sons of Israel was known before the Lord, and the Lord said in His Memra, that He would deliver them.
Date: 50–500 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The biblical phrase vayishma Elohim ('And God heard') is softened in the translation to reject the anthropomorphism. Not so, in terms of God 'remembering' the covenant. Consistency in translating is a desideratum that is hardly ever achieved ..."
Israel Drazin and Stanley M. Wagner, Onkelos on the Torah, Exodus: Understanding the Bible Text (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2006), 8.
* 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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