Texts in Conversation
Exodus 5 shows Pharaoh asking defiantly who God is, expressing ignorance and resistance. The Aramaic translation in Targum Onkelos changes the rhetorical question to a declarative statement, likely to avoid total ignorance or contempt for God.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 5:2
Hebrew Bible
1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said, ‘Release my people so that they may hold a pilgrim feast to me in the wilderness.’” 2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey him by releasing Israel? I do not know the Lord, and I will not release Israel!” 3 And they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Let us go a three-day journey into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, so that he does not strike us with plague or the sword.”
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Onkelos Exodus 5:2
Targum
1 And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and said to Pharaoh: This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Let My people go, so that they may hold a feast before Me in the desert. 2 And Pharaoh said, The name of the Lord is not known to me, that I should listen to His Memra to send Israel away. The name of the Lord is not revealed to me, and I will not release Israel. 3 And they said, The God of the Jews has revealed Himself to us; let us go now a three days' journey into the desert to sacrifice before the Lord our God, or He will come upon us with death or with slaughter.
Date: 50–500 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Onkelos changes the words of Pharaoh, 'who is the Lord that I should listen to His voice?' The question is replaced with an affirmative clause because it was regarded as unseemly that Pharaoh should have no knowledge of God or demonstrate contempt for the deity ..."
Israel Drazin and Stanley M. Wagner, Onkelos on the Torah, Exodus: Understanding the Bible Text (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2006), 25.
* 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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