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In Bereshit Rabbah 51 on Genesis 19:24 is found a very profound principle - whenever in the scripture is found "And the Lord, And the eternal" that means Hashem and his celestial court of justice. And Targum Jerusalem on Genesis 18:17 goes: "And the Lord with his Word said, Shall I hide from Abraham...".

Did the sages who wrote Targum Jerusalem keep in their minds this principle?

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  • Can you provide the source please, I copied the link but couldn't understand what part you refer to.
    – Al Berko
    Commented Sep 5 at 9:40
  • As a rule, rabbinic principles stated in different sources (the Mishna, the Talmud, the Midrashim, etc) are not exhaustive and systematic. They didn't mean to account for all existing instances of a phenomenon they account for.
    – Al Berko
    Commented Sep 5 at 9:43
  • Welcome to the site. Are you sure sages authored this targum?
    – Harel13
    Commented Sep 5 at 10:02
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    – mbloch
    Commented Sep 5 at 15:18
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    Like Harel13 I would query your premise that "the sages" were the authors of "Targum Jerusalem." As I understand it that targum is generally considered to have had a single author - see e.g. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targum_Pseudo-Jonathan just by way of example.
    – Edward B
    Commented Sep 6 at 17:24

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There are different opinions in Midrash. Happens all the time. If you see it one way in the Midrash Rabba and another in a Targum, then it simply reflects multiple valid opinions.

By the way, Onkelos' translation, especially, goes out of its way to avoid any sort of anthropomorphism or theologically-challenging statement. (For a more contemporary example, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's translation explains the figurative language as well -- what would literally in the Hebrew be G-d's "mighty hand" is "a show of great force", for example.)

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