The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

328 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
have an alignment of Targum Shir-ha-Shirim with Onqelos and
against the Palestinian Targum. Pseudo-Jonathan, as so often, rather
spoils the pattern, since it renders: de-dabberakh be-madbar...atar
hiwayan qalan. Pseudo-Jonathan, however, is by no means a straightforward
representative of the Palestinian Targum. It contains large
elements of Onqelos, so its translation hiwayan qalan here may well be
derived from Onqelos.
(b) No. 6: 'He would have drowned them in the waters of the sea,
just as Pharaoh and his mares, his chariots and his horsemen were
drowned'—u-ve'a le-shannaqutehon be-moy de-yamma hekhema deishtannaqu
par'oh \ve-susawatohi retikkohi u-farashohi. This clearly
echoes Exod. 14.27f: wa-yena'er yhwh et misrayim be-tokh ha-yam
wa-yashuvu ha-mayim wa-yekhassu et ha-rekev \ve-et ha-parashim lekhol
hel par'oh. Targum Shir ha-Shirim represents the distinctive
Hebrew verb ni'er by shanneq. This corresponds to Onqelos's rendering
of Exod. 14.27, we-shanneq yyy misraei he-go yamma. The
verb shanneq is also found in the Paris manuscript of the Fragmentary
Targum ad locum, and in the Targum to the parallel passage in Ps.
136.15, \ve-ni'er par'oh we-helo be-yam suf. Neofiti to Exod. 14.27
has shevaq ('abandoned'), which makes reasonable sense. However,
there is a suspicion that this is a simple graphical corruption of
shanneq (as Neofiti margin seems to imply). Pseudo-Jonathan, playing
on ni'er/na'ar, offers a unique aggadic rendering 'allem (possibly =
'he made them young again', in order to prolong their death
throes! 15 ). Targum Shir ha-Shirim must surely have known the rendering
shanneq for ni'er: It could hardly have hit upon the same
equivalent independently. However, since shanneq is the common
targumic rendering it does not serve to align Targum Shir ha-Shirim
exclusively with either the tradition of Onqelos or the Palestinian
Targum.
There are clearly an immense number of imponderables in this sort
of analysis. We must take account of the targumist's memory, since he
may not have had the pentateuchal text actually in front of him.
Sometimes he fuses together parallel texts from the Torah, at others
he seems to recall the underlying Hebrew and translate it anew into
15. Cf. Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Beshallah 1 (ed. Lauterbach, I, p. 246):
'And the Lord rejuvenated (va-yena'er) the Egyptians: He put into them the strength
of youth (koah na'aruf) so that they could receive the punishment.' See further,
Torah Shelemah's note to Exod. 14.27 (no. 181).