surnamed the Profylate, a famous rabbi of the first century, and the author of the Chaldee Targum on the Pentateuch. He flourished in the time of Jesus Christ, according to the Jewish writers; who all agree that he was, at least in some part of his life, contemporary with Jonathan Ben Uzziel, author of the second Targum upon the prophets. Dean Prideaux thinks he was the elder of the two, for several reasons; the chief of which is the purity of the style in his Targum, therein coming nearest to that part of Daniel and Ezra which is in the Chaldee, and is the truest standard of that language, and consequently is the most ancient; since that language, as well as others, was in a constant flux, and continued deviating in every age from the original; nor does there seem to be any reason why Jonathan Ben Uzziel, when he undertook his Targum, should pass over the law, and begin with the prophets, but that he found Onkelos had done this work before him, and with a success which he could not exceed.

Azarias, the author of a book entitled Meor Enaim, or the light of the eyes, tells us, that Onkelos was a proselyte in the time of Hillel and Samai, and lived to see Jonathan Ben Uzziel one of the prime scholars of Hillel. These three doctors flourished 12 years before Christ, according to the chronology of Gauz; who adds, that Onkelos was contemporary with Gamaliel the elder, St Paul's master, who was the grandson of Hillel, who lived 28 years after Christ, and did not die till 18 years before the destruction of Jerusalem. However, the same Gauz, by his calculation, places Onkelos 100 years after Christ; and to adjust his opinion with that of Azarias, extends the life of Onkelos to a great length. The Talmudists tell us that he assisted at the funeral of Gamaliel, and was at a prodigious expense to make it most magnificent. Dean Prideaux observes, that the Targum of Onkelos is rather a version than a paraphrase; since it renders the Hebrew text word for word, and for the most part accurately and exactly, and is by much the best of all this sort: and therefore it has always been held in esteem among the Jews much above all the other Targums: and being set to the same musical notes with the Hebrew text, is thereby made capable of being read in the same tone with it in their public assemblies.—From the excellency and accuracy of Onkelos' Targum, the dean also concludes him to have been a native Jew, since without being bred up from his birth in the Jewish religion and learning, and long exercised in all the rites and doctrines thereof, and being also thoroughly skilled in both the Hebrew and Chaldee languages, as far as a native Jew could be, he can scarce be thought thoroughly adequate to that work which he performed; and that the representing him as a proselyte seems to have proceeded from the error of taking him to have been the same with Akilas, or Aquila, of Pontus, author of the Greek Targum or version of the prophets and Hagiography, who was indeed a Jewish proselyte.