A Prophecy of Esau and Jacob

The Targum is an indispensable source of understanding the Bible. Started by Ezra for those returning Jews from Babylon and for these returnees they could only understand the Sacred Text in Aramaic; hence the Targum is as if Ezra is speaking to them in ancient times from the Sacred Text.

The Targum, whose origin was in the Aramaic language, could be traced to Ezra speaking to the returning exiles who couldn’t understand Hebrew, but was expounded to them in a language they could understand.

“For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgements,” Ezra 7:10. This process gave birth to the Targum; hence it is as if Ezra is speaking to them in ancient times and to us today from the Sacred Text.

Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Lord and to teach in Israel His laws, statutes and judgments. He was so highly regarded that he was appraised as the second Moses.

The earliest Targums date from the time after the Babylonian Exile when Aramaic had superseded Hebrew as the spoken language of the Jews back in Judea. During the Babylonian the use of Hebrew was displaced by Aramaic as a spoken language; although Hebrew was still remained the learned and sacred language. Thus the Targums were designed to meet the needs of unlearned Jews to whom the Hebrew of the Old Testament was unintelligible.

For it was in the synagogue that the practice of reading from the Old Testament became widely observed, along with the custom of providing these readings with a translation into Aramaic. When Scripture was read aloud in the synagogue, it was translated aloud by a meturgeman, or professional interpreter (hence the name Targum), for the benefit of the congregation.

The translator tried to reproduce the original text as closely as possible, but since his object was to give an intelligible rendering of the biblical text, the Targums eventually took on the character of paraphrase and commentary, leaving literal translation behind.

To prevent misconceptions, a meturgeman expanded and explained what was obscure, adjusted the incidents of the past to the ideas of later times, emphasized the moral lessons to be learned from the biblical narratives, and adapted the rules and regulations of the Scriptures to the conditions and requirements of the current age.

The method by which the text was thus utilized as a vehicle for conveying homiletic discourses, traditional sayings, legends, and allegories is abundantly illustrated by the later Targums, as opposed to the more literal translations of the earlier Targums.

The status and influence of the Targums became assured after the Second Temple was destroyed in AD 70, when synagogues replaced the Temple as houses of worship.

Though written Targums gradually came into being, it was the living tradition of oral translation and exposition that was recognized as authoritative throughout the Talmudic period of the early centuries of the Christian Era.

The official recognition of a written Targum, and therefore the final fixing of its text, belongs to the post-Talmudic period of the 5th century AD. The best known, most literal, and possibly the earliest Targum is the Targum of Onkelos on the Pentateuch, which appeared in its final revision in the 3rd century AD. Other Targums include the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan and the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel.

Not surprisingly, the endtime church, that of the churches of the Laodiceans, they have five characteristics beside being neither cold nor hot; and they are (1) WRETCHED (2) MISERABLE (3) POOR (4) BLIND (5) NAKED Revelation 3:14-17

For they ignored the fact that It was a righteous scribe, Ezra, whose work gave rise to the Targum, translating the Hebrew Text to Aramaic so that the rank and file could understand. He was a righteous priest and “a scribe skilled in the law.”

“For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.” Ezra 7:10

The Voice translated this same verse as “He (Ezra) was a second Moses, and tenaciously studied, practiced, and taught the Eternal’s law to Israel.”

Hence to study the Scriptures, the Targum is an indispensable source of understanding of what the Lord God has intended for any serious student to use, study and understand.

“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth.” Revelation 3:15-16.

Spewing out of His mouth is used metaphorically to describe rejection, disgust, or divine judgement and is usually meant spewing into the fire, which is a serious consequence of a judgement, but Laodiceans have no understanding, and most don’t care!

“Ye shall therefore keep all My statutes and all My judgments, and do them, that the land whither I bring you to dwell therein spew you not out.” Leviticus 20:22. “That the land spew not you out also when ye defile it, as it spewed out the nations that were before you.” Leviticus 18:28

Here, spewing out usually mean to be expelled into exile, into captivity; becoming slaves. The length of the house of Judah’s captivity of in Babylon was directly related from the length of time they neglected to observe the land Sabbath according to II Chronicles 36:19-21:

And they burned the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all the palaces thereof with fire and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. ²⁰ And those who had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia,

²¹ to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill threescore and ten years, II Chronicles 36:19-21: ‘by the mouth or spoken by Jeremiah’ this is a reference to the seventy years of captivity as spelt out in Jeremiah 25:11.

From the above, it could be established that the length of captivity is linked directly to the length of time to Israel’s neglect in their observance of the Sabbath, and in this case the observance of the land Sabbath.

If only the Orthodox Jews have consulted the Targum along with their other studies, they would have identified that the Messiah had already came in the name of Yeshua as a human, fulfilling the first part of prophecy as a suffering servant, and He will come again, to fulfil the second half as a conquering Son of God. 

But they are blind, hence they grope under the sunlight:

“And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways.” Deuteronomy 28:29

And similarly the Worldwide Church of God and today at the tail end by its Laodicean splinters: the Church of God Communities are also described as blind, wretched and naked as regards to their understand of the timing of Passover (Pesach) and the counting towards Pentecost (Shavuot). By not consulting the Targum, they gravitate toward the Samaritan’s way of worshipping the God of Israel.

~ by Joel on June 23, 2023.

Posted in Scriptures Studies