The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

302 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
would suggest that the whole of the section with plural nouns and
verbs, from 'and it shall be, when the sons of Jacob labour...' to
'...restrain themselves from labouring in the Torah', is a latter addition
to a text which originally, like the Hebrew, had only singular
nouns and verbs. Levy has pointed to the similarities between this
section and Neofiti of Gen. 3.15, where God warns Adam of the consequences
which will follow for his descendants should they keep, or
not keep, the commandments of the Torah; and his discussion allows
for the possibility that Neofiti of Gen. 27.40 has modified this wellknown
material from Gen. 3.15 before incorporating it into the present
text. 23
While Levy's thesis is plausible, more should be said about Neofiti's
translation of the difficult Hebrew verb tryd, rendered in our translation
above as 'you wander' as from the Hiph'il of root rwd, 'show
restlessness'. But the verb may derive from other roots; and the
ancient versions offer a wide range of alternative explanations of it,
which have most recently been listed and discussed by Alison
Salvesen. 24 Neofiti alone of all these versions seems to derive tryd
from the root rdh, 'to rule, have dominion', an interpretation of it
known also to R. Jose in the name of R. Halafta according to Gen. R.
67.7. Two observations are in order here.
First, it is possible that anyone meeting this interpretation of tryd in
the period, say, 100-500 CE might connect it with Neofiti's understanding
that two kingdoms were to be born from Rebecca; and therefrom
conclude that Esau in this verse represented Rome, the kingdom
which had overpowered Israel. However, Neofiti itself has, up to this
point, given no explicit indication that Esau is Rome; and a reader or
hearer of the text would have to base the identification on knowledge
derived from other sources. Second, if, for the moment, we set aside
the consideration that Esau may represent Rome, then the translation
of tryd as 'you shall have dominion over him', tslt byh, should
strikingly call to our attention another biblical verse. In Gen. 4.7,
God warns Cain of sin, and declares to him: 'you shall have dominion
over it'. 25 Neofiti translates this with the root sit in the course of a
23. See Levy, Targum Neophyti 1, pp. 183-86.
24. See A. Salvesen, Symmachus in the Pentateuch (Manchester, 1991),
pp. 47-48.
25. Hebrew w'th tmsl bw. This expression, with second person masculine
singular imperfect Qal of nisi, plus bw, occurs only here in the whole Hebrew Bible.