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Leviticus

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Chapter 24

1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 2 “Command the Israelites to bring to you pure oil of beaten olives for the light, to make a lamp burn continually. 3 Outside the special curtain of the congregation in the Meeting Tent, Aaron must arrange it from evening until morning before the Lord continually.⁠ This is a perpetual statute throughout your generations. 4 On the ceremonially pure lampstand he must arrange the lamps before the Lord continually. 5 “You must take choice wheat flour and bake twelve loaves; there must be two-tenths of an ephah of flour in each loaf, 6 and you must set them in two rows, six in a row, on the ceremonially pure table before the Lord. 7 You must put pure frankincense on each row, and it will become a memorial portion for the bread, a gift to the Lord. 8 Each Sabbath day Aaron must arrange it before the Lord continually; this portion is from the Israelites as a perpetual covenant. 9 It will belong to Aaron and his sons, and they must eat it in a holy place because it is most holy to him, a perpetually-allotted portion from the gifts of the Lord.” 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: 14 “Bring the one who cursed outside the camp, and all who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the whole congregation is to stone him to death. 15 Moreover, you are to tell the Israelites, ‘If any man curses his God, he will bear responsibility for his sin, 16 and one who misuses the name of the Lord⁠ must surely be put to death. The whole congregation must surely stone him, whether he is a resident foreigner or a native citizen; when he misuses the Name he must be put to death. 17 “‘If a man beats any person to death, he must be put to death. 18 One who beats an animal to death must make restitution for it, life for life. 19 If a man inflicts an injury on his fellow citizen, just as he has done it must be done to him—⁠ 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth—just⁠ as he inflicts an injury on another person that same injury must be inflicted on him. 21 One who beats an animal to death must make restitution for it, but one who beats a person to death must be put to death. 22 There will be one regulation for you, whether a resident foreigner or a native citizen, for I am the Lord your God.’”⁠ 23 Then Moses spoke to the Israelites and they brought the one who cursed outside the camp and stoned him with stones. So the Israelites did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Texts in conversation

Compare Leviticus 24:12 and Onkelos Leviticus 24:12

Hebrew Bible · Targum

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Summary

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.

Passages

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:
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Leviticus

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:
50–500 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Onkelos Leviticus

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.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Leviticus 24:12 and Onkelos Leviticus 24:12

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