The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

RIB ERA The Targum: From Translation to Interpretation 219
Therefore it is interesting, as an example, to take the text of
Jeremiah in order to note how this hermeneutic method is applied to
ancient translations and to the Targum as well. 5 To this end I propose
some classification of the rules of this method for interpreting the
Masoretic Text (MT).
Difficulties in Understanding
When the Hebrew Masoretic Text is difficult to understand the
Targum, like other ancient versions, supplies translations which often
differ from the original Hebrew and which at the same time are suitable
in context. For example, in Jer. 2.31 we read: 'Have I been a
wilderness to Israel or a land of thick darkness'? 6 In Greek and
Aramaic this is translated by way of parallelism with the first part of
the verse and we read: 'Have I been a wilderness to Israel or an arid
land?' However the Latin version follows the Hebrew text closely and
has 'an evening land'. 7 In Jer. 11.19 the MT is meaningless: 'Let us
destroy the tree [or the wood] in his bread'. All the ancient versions
change in this way: 'Let us cast wood into his bread'; but the Targum
explains the meaning clearly adding some words: 'Let us cast deadly
poison into his food'. 8 Jer. 15.18 has an attribute 'incurable' in this
context: 'Why is my paining unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing
to be healed?', which contrasts in some way with the opinion of
translators who believe that the moral location of Israel, symbolized
by the wound, can be cured or changed; therefore they mitigate the
meaning of the MT by translating in Greek, Aramaic and Syriac: 'my
wound is serious' 9 , whereas in Latin the full meaning of the original
text (desperabilis) is maintained. The use of the verb 'crush' (dk'} in
midrdsico y la exegesis del nuevo testamento (Valencia, 1985), pp. 33-79; Ribera, El
Targum de Isaias, pp. 27-28.
5. Every book of the Bible has, of course, its own textual evolution and also its
translations. Notwithstanding, there are common exegetic rules available in all
ancient translations; on this field of investigation see J. Koenig, L'hermeneutique
analogique de juda'fsme antique d'apres les temoins textuels d'lsa'ie (Leiden, 1982).
The author discovers in LXX translation the hermeneutic rules of verbal and formal
analogy and of textual analogy.
6. In Hebrew: m'plh, from 'lp 'darkness'. BHS readspelliyah 'Marvellous'.
7. In Aramaic hurba', LXX: kekhersomene; it is possible too that LXX and
Targum read on the basis of the other Vorlage.
8. Vulgate reads nislah, but LXX and Targum nislak.
9. Targum has tqyf, P, hsyn; LXX, sterea.