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Onkelos Leviticus

About this book

The Lamps and the Bread of Memorial

Chapter 24

1 And the Lord spoke with Moses, saying, 2 Instruct the sons of Israel to bring to you oil of olives, pure and beaten, to give light, to make the lamps burn continually. 3 Outside of the veil of the testimony Aaron shall arrange it in the Tent of Meeting from evening until morning before the Lord continually; an everlasting statute for your generations. 4 He shall arrange the lamps on the pure lampstand before the Lord continually. 5 And you shall take flour, and prepare twelve cakes; two tenths shall be for one cake. 6 And you shall place them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure table before the Lord. 7 And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, and it shall be for Bread of Memorial, an offering before the Lord. 8 Every Sabbath day he shall arrange it before the Lord continually, from the offerings of the children of Israel, an everlasting statute. 9 And it shall be for Aaron and for his sons, so that they may eat it in the holy place; for it is most sacred to him of the offerings of the Lord by an everlasting statute.

Blasphemy and Equal Judgment

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: 14 Bring the man who has cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. 15 And speak with the sons of Israel, saying: Any man who curses before his God shall bear his guilt, 16 and anyone who pronounces the Name of the Lord, shall certainly be put to death, and all the congregation shall stone him, the proselyte as well as the native-born; when he has pronounced the Name blasphemously, he shall be put to death. 17 And the man who kills a human being shall be put to death. 18 And he who kills an animal shall make restitution, life for life. 19 And if a man inflicts a blemish on his neighbor, as he has done, so it shall be done to him: 20 bruise for bruise, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, as he has inflicted a blemish on a man, it shall be done to him. 21 And he who kills a beast shall make restitution; but he who kills a man shall be put to death. 22 You shall have one standard of judgment for the proselyte and the native-born alike; for I am the Lord your God.⁠ 23 And Moses spoke with the sons of Israel, and they brought out the blasphemer outside the camp, and stoned him with stones; and the sons of Israel did as the Lord 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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