CHAPTER EIGHT

Sodom and Gomorrah in the Targumim

Introduction

Despite its general title, my paper shall not attempt to describe the story of the two cities as retold in the Targumim. It will simply try to illuminate some differences encountered in the Aramaic translations of the biblical narrative about Sodom and Gomorrah, in the hope of showing how the biblical text was developed and transformed in the Aramaic translations. This paper will thus have the character of a collection of miniatures, small vignettes, each dealing with a different verse of the biblical narrative. It can be seen as a small triptych, with each panel depicting Gen 18:1, Gen 18:20 and Gen 18:21 respectively. But more than just portraying three stories, each panel will attempt to answer one of the following questions: (1) Who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah? (2) What were the sins of Sodom? (3) Who was Pelitit?

1. Who Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah?

The Masoretic text of Gen 18:1 starts directly with the apparition of God to Abraham. The text states straightforwardly: “And YHWH appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day” (Gen 18:1). But in the following verse (Gen 18:2) what Abraham sees are ”.(לקראתם ,and he ran to meet them (in plural ,(שלשה אנשים) three men“ In Gen 18:3 Abraham addresses himself to a single person: “If I have found do not pass away (singular ,(בעיניך ,grace in your eyes (singular pronoun (ורחצו ,but in 18:4 he requests that they wash (plural verb ”,(תעבר ,verb The same alternation of singular and .(רגליהם ,their feet (plural pronoun plural forms is found in other consecutive verses of the same chapter. For example, in verse 9 the three men address Abraham: “and they said to but in verse 10 it is apparently God who addresses Abraham ,(ויאמרו) ”him announcing that he will return and Sarah will have a son: “and he said” Genesis 18:22 solves this ambiguity by making clear that there are .(ויאמר) four protagonists in view, God and the three men: “And the (three) men turned their faces from there and went to Sodom, but Abraham stood yet before YHWH.” 120 chapter eight

The Hebrew text thus presents a number of problems and it leaves many things unexplained.1 When precisely did the apparition take place? The Hebrew text narrates the apparition to Abraham directly after his reference to his circumcision, but without establishing any temporal link between the two narratives, thus leaving this fundamental meeting without a precise timeframe. Why was Abraham sitting out in the heat of the day? Was he lazy and preferred to sit instead of working? Or was he slightly out of his mind, to do such a thing instead of sitting in the shade? Even more importantly, who were these three men who, in the narrative, sometimes seem to be confused with God himself? The Aramaic translations have a ready answer to all these obvious ques- tions, of course, and to many more, some of them rather unexpected. The Aramaic translation of Gen 18:1 in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads:2 ואתגלי עלוהי יקרא דה' בחיזוי ממרא והוא מרע מכיבא דמהולתא יתיב תרע משכנא לתוקפא דיומא And it was revealed upon him the glory of the Lord in the vision of Mamre when, sick from the pain of the circumcision, he was sitting at the door of the tent in the strength of the day. The answer as to why Abraham was sitting at that time of day is clear: Abraham was sick from the pain of the circumcision and consequently was unable to work. Pseudo-Jonathan is less clear concerning the time- ”,and he was“ ,והוא) frame because it simply uses a nominal sentence which I have translated by “when”), but it clearly links the narrative with the previous narrative of Gen 17 and implies that both stories follow each other closely. That God does not appear directly to Abraham, but rather ,the glory of YHWH” is revealed to him, was to be expected“ יקרא דה' since the targumim avoid anthropomorphism. However, the transforma- is more בחיזוי ממרא in the oaks of Mamre,” into“ ,באלני ממרא tion of difficult to explain, though it is the usual translation in Pseudo-Jonathan

1 Among the many studies dedicated to the problems of the biblical text, see, for example, W. W. Fields, Sodom and Gomorrah: History and Motif in Biblical Narrative (JSOT- Sup 231; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997); R. I. Letellier, Day in Mamre, Night in Sodom: Abraham and Lot in Gen. 18 and 19 (BIS 10; Leiden: Brill, 1995); J. A. Loader, A Tale of Two Cities: Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, Early Jewish and Early Christian Traditions (CBET 1; Kok: Kampen, 1990); T. Rudin-O’Brasky, The Patriarch in Hebron and Sodom: A Study of the Structure and Composition of a Biblical Story (Jerusalem: Simor, 1982) [Hebrew]. 2 According to the text edited in the Polyglotta Matritensis, IV: Targum Palestinense in Pentateuchum. L. 1 Genesis (Madrid: CSIC, 1988), 109.