Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Targum Jonathan on Ezekiel 37:16, 20

  

One of the basic equipment items in the Talmudic age, namely the writing tablet (לוח) is presumed by TJ to have existed in Biblical times. Hence TJ’s translation of עץ (“stick”) in Ezek. 37:16 f. and v. 20a is consistently לוחא (“writing tablet”), though this rendering is hardly suitable in this context (It is true that Ezekiel is told to write on the עץ [v. 16]. But the context indicates that this was no writing tablet, but a wooden stick). (Leivy Smolar and Moses Aberbach, Studies in Targum Jonathan to the Prophets [The Library of Biblical Studies; New York: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1983], 103)