Texts in Conversation
In Exodus 4, Moses’s hand becomes “leprous like snow.” In the Aramaic translation in Targum Onkelos, this is changed to “white like snow,” removing the leprosy. This may have been changed to protect Moses' dignity and any association with impurity.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 4:6
Hebrew Bible
5 “that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” 6 The Lord also said to him, “Put your hand into your robe.” So he put his hand into his robe, and when he brought it out—there was his hand, leprous like snow! 7 He said, “Put your hand back into your robe.” So he put his hand back into his robe, and when he brought it out from his robe—there it was, restored like the rest of his skin!
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Onkelos Exodus 4:6
Targum
5 So that they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers has been revealed to you, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 6 And the Lord said to him, Put your hand into your garment. And he put his hand into his garment, and took it out; and look, his hand was white as snow. 7 And He said, Put your hand back into your garment. And he put his hand back into his garment, and drew it out, and look, it had become like his own flesh again.
Date: 50–500 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The targumist deliberately translates the word metzora'at as 'white' rather than as 'leprous,' its literal translation. This may have been done to preserve the dignity of Moses: God would not let so great a man as Moses become leprous. It is also possible that the change was made to thwart the suggestion that Moses might have been a leper, as Manetho and some other Egyptian anti-Israelites claimed during the centuries before the Common Era ..."
Israel Drazin and Stanley M. Wagner, Onkelos on the Torah, Exodus: Understanding the Bible Text (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2006), 19.
* 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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