Texts in Conversation
In Leviticus, the blasphemer is held in custody until a ruling comes from the mouth of God. Onkelos replaces the mouth with the decree from the Memra of God, removing the literal sense of God's mouth from the text.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Leviticus 24:12
Hebrew Bible
10 Now an Israelite woman’s son whose father was an Egyptian went out among the Israelites, and the Israelite woman’s son and an Israelite man had a fight in the camp. 11 The Israelite woman’s son misused the Name and cursed, so they brought him to Moses. (Now his mother’s name was Shelomith, daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) 12 So they placed him in custody until they were able to make a clear legal decision for themselves based on words from the mouth of the Lord. 13 Then the Lord spoke to Moses:
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Onkelos Leviticus 24:12
Targum
10 And the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man went out among the children of Israel; and the son of the Israelite woman, and a man, a son of Israel, quarreled in the camp. 11 And the son of the woman the daughter of Israel pronounced the Name and cursed. And they brought him to Moses. And the name of his mother was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. 12 And they held him in custody, until it should be explained to them by the decree of the Memra of the Lord. 13 And the Lord spoke with Moses, saying:
Date: 50–500 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... DECREE OF THE MEMRA [WORD OR WISDOM]. The Bible’s anthropomorphic metaphor pi, “mouth,” is interpreted by our targumist and Pseudo-Jonathan as “decree of (gezeirat) the memra.” [...] Schefftel (Biure Onkelos) notes that Berliner records a masorah that Onkelos has gezeirat memra four times: here, Numbers 14:41, 22:18, and 24:13. Schefftel suggests that gezeirat may imply “details” here: the Israelites did not know the specifics of the punishment for blaspheming, especially the manner of death. Pseudo-Jonathan mentions four instances of another occurrence: there were four times when Moses did not know the law and had to inquire of the Lord, including this case. Neophyti reads: “until there would be uttered to them from before the Lord with which [kind of] judgment they should kill them” ...”
Israel Drazin and Stanley M. Wagner, Onkelos on the Torah, Leviticus: Understanding the Bible Text (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2008), 198.
* 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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