Genesis 20:3

Hebrew Bible

2 Abraham said about his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” So Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent for Sarah and took her. 3 But God appeared to Abimelech in a dream at night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken, for she is someone else’s wife.” 4 Now Abimelech had not gone near her. He said, “Lord, would you really slaughter an innocent nation?

Onkelos Genesis 20:3

Targum

2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister. And Abimelek, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. 3 And the word came from the presence of the Lord to Abimelek in a dream of the night, and said to him, Behold, thou diest, on account of the woman whom thou hast taken, and she a man's wife. 4 But Abimelek had not come nigh her. And he said, Lord, wilt Thou also kill the innocent people?

 Notes and References

"... Again, as with “glory,” the targumists use the “Presence” of God as a way of accounting for the wording of the Hebrew text, without the suggestion that God is visible or limited to one place; the Shekhinah both is and is not God. Besides “glory” and “presence,” the targumists use “word,” “command,” or “utterance” (Memra) to render speech by and about God. The use of Memra across the Targums is unsystematic, but the core of its meaning seems to be that God acts in and through his powerful commands, so that in any context of God’s speech or action the Memra, like “glory” and “presence,” can stand for God himself ... The literature on the use of Memra in the Targums is massive, largely because, for many years, many interested parties have wished to assert (or deny) its relevance as background for the Logos concept found in Philo and in the Gospel of John ..."

Cook, Edward M. "The Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the Targums" in Henze, Matthias (ed.) A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism (pp. 92-117) William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012

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