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CHAPTER II.

Targums or Chaldee Paraphrases :-Their Origin,— Authors,-Jonathan,-Onkelos.-Some by unknown Authors and of uncertain Age.-Uses of the Targums.

THE next Jewish writings which claim our attention are the Targums. Targum is a Chaldee word, signifying an interpretation, version, paraphrase, or exposition. It denotes a translation of the sense from one language into another, rather than a mere literal version, though some of the Targums are very literal.*

The general opinion is, that these paraphrases originated in the circumstances arising out of the Babylonian captivity; that, being dispersed in various parts of Chaldea, the Jews were under the necessity of adopting the language of their masters; that Hebrew ceasing to be a vernacular tongue, the knowledge of it, from that period, was confined to the priests and Levites, and a few of the principal persons of the nation; that when the law was publicly read to the people, after their return to Jerusalem, they required an interpretation to enable them to understand it; and this interpretation must necessarily have been in Chaldee, the only language with which the majority were acquainted. It has indeed been contended, that though during the captivity the Jews might have acquired some

* Walton. Proleg. xii. s. 4. Wolf. Bib. Heb. vol. ii. p. 1187. Castell. Lex. Hept. col. 3944. Leusden. Philol. Heb. Dis. vi. s. 11.

+ Nehem. viii. 7, 8.

knowledge of the Chaldean tongue, it is unreasonable to suppose they had forgotten their own; that the prophecies of Ezekiel and Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, and the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, would never have been delivered to the people in a language which they did not understand; that the general adherence of the Jews to their ancient idiom may be fairly inferred from the complaint of Nehemiah, against the strange dialect spoken in the families of those who had married wives of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab; that the account of the sacred historian respecting Ezra and his associates, who "read in the book, "in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, "and caused the people to understand the law," imports an exposition in the same language, not an interpretation in another, and represents Ezra, on these occasions, not as an interpreter, but as a preacher; and, lastly, that though Hebrew might not have been spoken in its ancient purity, or without some intermixture of Chaldee, yet it was not wholly superseded, as the vernacular language of Judea, till after the death of Alexander the Great. But no historical evidence has been adduced of such a change taking place at the period assigned; and if the Hebrew had continued to be generally spoken till that time, it seems very difficult, if not impossible, to account for Chaldee being the language then substituted in its room. To discuss this question at large, however, would be foreign from the present design. There is reason to believe that the method adopted in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and continued for several generations,

on every sabbath day, was for a verse or sentence of the law to be read in Hebrew by one person, and then interpreted in Chaldee by another, and so each successive clause to the end of the section; and that these interpretations were at first given extempore by persons familiar with both languages, and under the superintendence of Ezra and some of the latter prophets. At what period written versions were introduced, history has not recorded. It is probable that some of the oral illustrations of the interpreters were perpetuated by their insertion on the margins of copies of the law; and that, increasing in number from time to time, they were at length collected by some industrious and competent individual, who supplied what was yet wanting to a complete version of any one or more books of the sacred code.*

Some have supposed that there were many Targums which have been lost in the lapse of ages.† Of those which have descended to our times, the most ancient are that of Onkelos on the Law, and that of Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Prophets,

Jonathan Ben Uzziel is generally believed to have composed his Targum before the birth of Christ. He was a disciple of Hillel, one of the most eminent of the Jewish doctors; who was president of the sanhedrim about a hundred years before the destruction of the second temple. He

* Walton. Proleg. xii, s. 5-7. Pseif. Theol. Jud. Exerc. ii. c. 1, 2. Raym. Mart. Pug. Fid. p. 140. Bartoloc. Bib. Rab. tom. i. p. 406. Leusden. Philol. Heb. Dis. v. s. 1-4. Wolf. Bib. Heb. vol. ii. p. 1135–1146. Allix's Judgment of the Jewish Church, c. 7.

+ Walton. Proleg. xii. s. 12.

is allowed to have written in a better and purer style than any other Targumist except Onkelos: on the former prophets he is more literal and simple; on the latter prophets more paraphrastic and allegorical, with some mixture of the fabulous. Numerous prophecies are applied by him to the Messiah, in the same manner as by Christians. The high estimation in which he is held by the Jews, is evinced by the following extravagant eulogium.

'Our rabbies say: Hillel the elder ' had eighty disciples; of whom thirty were worthy 'that the shechinah, or divine glory, should rest

upon them, as upon Moses our master, of blessed

memory; thirty were worthy that the sun should 'stand still for them, as for Joshua the son of Nun; and twenty possessed mediocrity of worth; but 'the greatest of them all was Jonathan the son of 'Uzziel.' They extol his work as of divine authority, affirming that he received it from the mouth of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; and that his writing it was honoured with the sanction of heaven, in several miracles which attended its commencement and completion. But he was not cotemporary with either of these prophets, the last of whom had been dead at least three hundred years; and the miracles are unsupported by any evidence worthy of credit.*

It is undetermined among the learned, whether

* Raym. Mart. Pug. Fid. p. 143. 317. Walton. Proleg. xii. s. 10. Owen. Theolog. L. v. D. 3. s. 4. Pseif. Theol. Jud. Ex. 2. Leusden. Philol. Heb. Dis. vi. Wolf. Bib. Heb. vol. ii. p. 1159–1167. Bava Bathra, c. viii. f. 134. et Megilla, c. i. f. 3. apud Pseif. & Wolf. Allix's Judgment, ibid.

Onkelos was a Jew by birth, or a proselyte who embraced Judaism after having arrived at years of maturity. Some writers have confounded him with Aquila of Pontus, whom I have already had occasion to mention; who was first a heathen, afterwards embraced Christianity, and lastly apostatized to Judaism; and after his apostasy produced a version of the Old Testament into Greek, about the year of Christ 130. Others have described him as a nephew of Titus Vespasian the Roman emperor, proselyted after the destruction of Jerusalem. Others have affirmed that he was a proselyte, cotemporary with Jonathan, though considerably younger, and one of the disciples of Hillel and Shammai. His name is considered by some as affording decisive evidence that he was of Gentile race; while others think it altogether incredible, that he could have attained the accuracy and elegance which distinguish his composition, unless he had been born and educated a Jew. His work is rather a version than a paraphrase, and has been much admired for its close adherence to the words, and general fidelity to the meaning, of the sacred original. In simplicity and purity of style, it approaches more nearly to the Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra than any other writings now extant. This circumstance affords no slight ground for the conjecture, that it is more ancient than even the Targum of Jonathan on the Prophets. The form of many manuscripts of the Law, in which this version is inserted after the Hebrew text, verse for verse, shews the high veneration it has received from the Jews. Before the art of printing was

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