The Targum of Canticles: Translated, With a Critical Introduction, Apparatus, and Notes (Aramaic Bible) <\/a> ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=leithartcom-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0814654533\")
), has its amusing oddities. \u00a0The bride in the cleft of the rock in 2:14 is Israel at the Red Sea, hemmed in by Pharaoh behind and the Red Sea to the front, and on the two sides with \u201cdeserts full of fiery serpents that bite and kill men with their venom.\u201d \u00a0She cried out to the Lord, and Yahweh answered in the words of the Song: \u201cO Congregation of Israel, that resembles the spotless dove shut up in the clefts of the rock and in the hiding-places of the cliff, let Me see your form and your upright deeds. \u00a0Let Me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet when you pray in the Little Sanctuary, and your form is comely through good deeds.\u201d <\/p>\n Augustine would have approved the gloss on the white teeth of the bride, which are \u201cthe Priests and Levites who offer up your offerings, and eat holy flesh, tithe and heave-offering, which are pure from any violence or robbery.\u201d \u00a0The temples like pomegranates are like the \u201cKing, who was their head\u201d and \u201cas full of precepts as a pomegranate\u201d \u2013 understood, I expect, to mean \u201cas a pomegranate is full of seeds.\u201d \u00a0The eighty wives and sixty concubines inspire an allegory of a Greek invasion and siege of Jerusalem: \u201cthe Greeks arose and gathered together sixty kings from the sons of Esau, clad in chain-mail and mounted on horses, and cavalry, and eighty commanders from the sons of Ishmael, riding on elephants, not to mention the rest of the nations, peoples and tongues that were without number, and they appointed the wicked Alexander as head over them, and they came to wage war against Jerusalem.\u201d <\/p>\n
A number of the basic moves in the Targum, though, are defensible and illuminating. \u00a0For instance: <\/p>\n
1. The temple is at the center of the Targum\u2019s interpretation of the Song. \u00a0Many modern commentators have noted the link between the temple and the palanquin of Solomon in Song 3:6-11, but few have noted what the Targum notes, that the armed men who precede the palanquin are \u201cPriests and Levites, and all the tribes of Israel.\u201d \u00a0That is, the priests and Levites stand guard at the \u201ccoach\u201d built by Solomon. \u00a0When incense is mentioned, the Targum immediately turns to the temple setting. <\/p>\n
2. The Targum takes the references to \u201cdaughters of Jerusalem\u201d and other maidens as references to other nations and cities. \u00a0If (as Revelation asserts) Jerusalem is the harlot city that reigns over the kings of the earth, it seems plausible that she was once the bride-city surrounded by an international company of bridesmaids\/attendants. <\/p>\n
3. The Targum takes the entire Song as the story of Israel \u2013 her captivity in Egypt, the marriage covenant at Sinai, the coming of Yahweh in the Shekinah, Israel\u2019s painfully inconsistent love for Yahweh, her temple and her exile. \u00a0Though the Targum is often Procrustean with this scheme, finding a place for Daniel and for the Maccabees toward the end of the Song, it\u2019s on the right track to see Israel\u2019s history as the sounding board against which the Song resonates. <\/p>\n
4. Some of the specific interpretations are, I think, quite good. \u00a0Many waters cannot quench love is expounded as these words from Yahweh: \u201cEven if all the nations, which are likened to the waters of the sea, which are many, should gather together, they would not be able to quench My love for you. \u00a0And if all the kings of the earth, which are likened to the waters of a river that flow strongly, should assemble, they would not be able to blot you out from the world.\u201d \u00a0Still too schematic, but the thrust of the comment is just right. \u00a0On 4:13, which compares the bride to a paradise of pomegranates, the Targum says that when Israel obeys, when young men love their wives and raise righteous sons (!), \u201ctheir scent is like the sweet spices of the Garden of Eden, cypress and crocus.\u201d \u00a0This gets two things right, I think: First, that the faithful obedience of the bride is the aroma, and second that this aroma arises from the bride as if from Eden. \u00a0When the lover is compared to a tree in whose shade the woman finds refreshment, the Targum thinks of the Shekinah, the shade of Yahweh over Israel. \u00a0The \u201chouse of wine\u201d in 2:4 is Sinai. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Targum on the Song of Songs, deftly translated and annotated by Philip Alexander ( The Targum of Canticles: Translated, With a Critical Introduction, Apparatus, and Notes (Aramaic Bible) ), has its amusing oddities. \u00a0The bride in the cleft of the rock in 2:14 is Israel at the Red Sea, hemmed in by Pharaoh behind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-ot-song-of-songs"],"yoast_head":"\n
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