Texts in Conversation
Exodus 12 uses language to describe God passing through Egypt that suggests God has a body. The Aramaic translation in Targum Onkelos avoids this language of God having a body, replacing it with a more abstract sense of God being “revealed.”
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 12:12
Hebrew Bible
11 This is how you are to eat it—dressed to travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 12 “‘I will pass through the land of Egypt in the same night, and I will attack all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both of humans and of animals, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, so that when I see the blood I will pass over you, and this plague will not fall on you to destroy you when I attack the land of Egypt.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Onkelos Exodus 12:12
Targum
11 And this is how you shall eat it: with your belts fastened, with your sandals on your feet, and your staffs in your hands, and you shall eat it in haste; it is the Passover before the Lord. 12 And I will be revealed in the land of Egypt on that night, and will kill every firstborn in the land, from people to animals, and on all the idols of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 And the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and I will see the blood and have mercy on you, and the plague of death shall not be among you when I strike the land of Egypt.
Date: 50–500 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Our targumist avoids the biblical active anthropomorphism 'I will pass through.' Our translator also makes this change in verse 23, but not in such places as 33:22, 34:6 and Deuteronomy 31:3, where the verb is not used in connection with the Passover event. He changes several verbs in the next few sentences from the past tense to the future ..."
Israel Drazin and Stanley M. Wagner, Onkelos on the Torah, Exodus: Understanding the Bible Text (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2006), 67.
* 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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