(interpretation or version), a name given to the Chaldee paraphrases of the books of the Old Testament. They are called paraphrases or expositions, because they are rather comments and explications than literal translations of the text. They are written in the Chaldee tongue, which became familiar to the Jews after the time of their captivity in Babylon, and was more known to them than the Hebrew itself; so that when the Hebrew text was read in the synagogue, or in the temple, they generally added to it an explication in the Chaldee tongue for the service of the people, who had but a very imperfect knowledge of the Hebrew. It is probable, that even from the time of Ezra this custom began (Nehem. viii. 7-9).

At present we know of eleven Targums, three of which comprehend the five books of Moses.—1. The Targum of Onkelos. 2. That of the Pseudo-Jonathan. 3. The Jerusalem Targum. 4. That of Jonathan ben Uzziel on the Prophets. 5. That of Joseph the Blind or one-eyed, on the Hagiographa (Job, Psalms, Proverbs). 6. A Targum on the five Megilloth, i.e. the books of Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and Lamentations of Jeremiah. 7. A Targum on 1st and 2d Chronicles. 8, 9, and 10. Three on Esther. 11. The Jerusalem Targum on the Prophets.

Onkelos.—According to the Babylonian Talmud, Onkelos was a disciple of Hillel, who died 60 years n.c. The version of Onkelos, containing the Pentateuch alone, is incomparably the best of all the Targums. The style is pure, approaching that of Daniel and Ezra; it follows the original word for word, except where figures of speech are occasionally resolved in poetical passages, and anthropomorphic expressions removed or changed, lest corporeity should be attributed to the Supreme Being. The work is particularly useful in criticism, because it is very literal, closely adhering to the original words. Wherever the Targum translator deviates from the Masoretic text, he has almost always the countenance of other ancient versions. He refers only two passages to the Messiah (Gen. xlii. 10; Num. xxiv. 17). Onkelos's reputation among the Jews has always been great; his version is even used by them as a kind of dictionary giving the significations of the Hebrew words; and they have composed a Masora on it like that upon the Hebrew Bible, called Masora Hattargum. This paraphrase is given in the Paris and London Polyglotts from Buxtorf's edition of 1618; the text, however, is not yet accurately printed after good MSS. Luzzato has recently attempted to revise it in his work entitled Philozenus, sive de Onkelosi paraphr. Chald., Wien, 1830, 8vo. (See the Halle Literaturzeit for 1832.)

Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Prophets and Historical Books.—The accounts of Jonathan's life are obscure. His Targum, like that of Onkelos, is frequently mentioned in the Talmud, and must have been well known when the latter was written. Some have erroneously looked upon this Targum as the composition of different authors, because it is more literal in the historical books than in the prophecies; but external and internal evidence coincides in proving the unity of the whole. It contains Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets. The style is inferior to that of Onkelos; it contains several Greek words, but no Latin terms, as Eichhorn affirms. We are aware that Hävernick, after Carpzov, asserts that the style agrees in the main with Onkelos's; but it is certainly less pure, freer, and more paraphrastical. The utility of this Targum chiefly bears upon the critical history of the Hebrew text, and it generally harmonises with the Masoretic recension. It is printed in the Bibles of Bomberg and Buxtorf, as also in the London Polyglott.

Pseudo-Jonathan on the Pentateuch.—This paraphrase has been falsely ascribed to the same Jonathan who translated the prophets and historical books. Its language is much more impure, being mixed with foreign words, such as Persian, Greek, and Latin, a collection of which has been made by Petermann, De indole Paraphrasos, quae Jonathans esse dicitur. Berol. 1829, p. 65, sq. The mode of rendering is entirely different; it contains numerous allegories, fables, and dialogues, unlike the manner of the real Jonathan. The dialect in which it is written is that of Jerusalem; and where the author abides by the Hebrew text, he uniformly follows the Rabbinical interpretation. Several circumstances, especially the character of the style and the mention of the Talmud, prove that it was made after the sixth century of the Christian era. Zunz, with great probability, assigns it to the latter half of the seventh century. It appears to have been compiled in part from former expositions.

The Jerusalem Targum on the Pentateuch.—This version is styled the Jerusalem Targum, either from having been made at Jerusalem, or rather from its being executed in the dialect of that place. It contains merely interpretations of select passages, and generally agrees with the Pseudo-Jonathan. The fables of the Pseudo-Jonathan are repeated, and Hebrew words are inserted without any explanation. The language is impure and barbarous; whole chapters are occasionally omitted; and again, a series of successive explanations is attached to a single word. It consists of mere fragments. Late investigations, conducted with great skill and industry, have fully established the fact that the Targum on the Pentateuch, falsely ascribed to Jonathan, existed much earlier under the name of the Jerusalem Targum or the Targum of Palestine. Thus the Pseudo-Jonathan is identified with the Targum of Jerusalem. They are merely recensions of the same work. There is also ground for believing that the Jerusalem Targum extended to the prophetic books, and even to the other parts of the Old Testament (Zunz, p. 77, sq.). Some of the Targums now existing on several books of the Hagiographa appear to belong to it. (See Zunz, Gottesdienstliche Vorträge der Juden, Berlin, 1832, 8vo, and Hävernick's Einleitung.) These two Targums, which are substantially one and the same, furnish extremely little aid in the criticism of the Old Testament. They exhibit the doctrinal system of the later Jews; indeed all the post-Talmudic versions were designed to furnish allegorical explanations agreeable to the rules laid down in the Talmud, and to embody current traditions, legends, and tales.

The paraphrases on Job, Psalms, and Proverbs possess a common character in regard to style and language, and probably proceeded from the same country, which Zunz conjectures to have been Syria; that on Proverbs, however, adheres closely to the Hebrew text, partaking more of the character of a version than a paraphrase, while those on Job and Psalms are loose and legendary, agreeably to the genius of the time in which they were made. It has been frequently noticed that the Targum on Proverbs has a remarkable agreement with the Syriac version, so that some have supposed the writer to have made use of that more ancient translation; this hypothesis, however, is not very probable. The dialects in which both are written were cognate; the country to which they owed their origin the same; it is not necessary, therefore, to conclude that the one was derived in part from the other. The paraphrases of the books of Psalms and Job appear to have been written by the same person, as far as we can judge from internal uniformity. Earlier Targums on Job must have existed, as they are mentioned by some of the Rabbins.

The Targum on Job, Psalms, and Proverbs, attributed to Joseph the Blind, is generally considered not to have been written by the reputed author.

The Targum on the Megilloth was probably written by the same person; it is exceedingly free and full of adventitious matter. The part upon Ruth is the best; that on Solomon's Song the most fabulous. The work must have been written a considerable time after the Talmud. In addition to the Targum on Esther, which forms a part of this Targum on the five Megilloth, and is also the oldest and best, there are two others on the same book. The second is an enlargement of this first, and was inserted in the London Polyglott; it had been previously published by Tayler in a Latin version, under the name of Targum prius (Lond. 1655, 4to). The third is still longer and more full of fables; it was published in Latin by Tayler, under the title of Targum posterioris, but the original has never been printed. These three are properly different recensions of one and the same work, which, having been comparatively brief and free from absurd stories, was subsequently enlarged at two different times.

It was long thought that there was no Targum on the books of Chronicles; Beck, however, found such a paraphrase in a MS. belonging to the library at Erfurt, and published it with learned annotations in 1680-85. The MS. has several chasms. It was afterwards published by Wilkins from the Erpenian MS. at Cambridge in 1715: here the text is full and correct. This Targum resembles the later works of the same kind; and could not have been written before the ninth century, from its references to the Jerusalem Targum.

In cod. 154 of Kennicott, there is a passage of some length quoted in the margin at Zechariah xii. 10 (Bruns in Eichhorn's Repertorium, xv. 174). It is attributed to a Targum of Jerusalem on the prophets.

As far as our present knowledge reaches, there is no Chaldee version of Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The reason assigned in the Talmud for not translating Daniel into Chaldee is, because it reveals the exact time of Messiah's advent. But the true cause seems rather to have been the superstition of the Jews in supposing that if these books were translated into Chaldee, the holy text of the original should be mixed with that of the paraphrase, inasmuch as there are in them Chaldee sections. There are indeed no Chaldee pieces in Nehemiah; but it was taken along with Ezra as one book, and hence no Targum of either was made.

The Targums are of considerable use in a critical view, and they show the integrity of the present Masoretic text. (See the Introductions of Eichhorn, Bertholdt, and De Wette; Winer, De Onkeloso ejusque Paraphrasi Chaldaica, 4to, Lips. 1819; Gesenius Comment. zu Jesaja, tom. i.; Walton, Protegomena; Jost, Geschichte des Israeliten, Berlin, 1824-9, tom. iii. and iv. Winer has published a grammar and Christomathy to facilitate the reading of the Targums, and Buxtorf's folio Lexicon is the best dictionary.)