Adar II 5784: Targum Rishon and Targum Sheni to Megillat Esther

🎭 Two expansive Aramaic translations of the Scroll of Esther give us a window into how ancient and medieval audiences understood the core text of the Purim story, and enhance our own.

A 1457 copy—one of the relatively few—of Targum Rishon to Megillat Esther, including intial words from the verses in square letters and the Targum in semicursive. It was created in Tlemcen, north Africa, in what is today Algeria. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris Ms. hebr. 110.

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Megillat Esther, the Scroll of Esther, or in rabbinic parlance, simply “Megilla,” is a somewhat puzzling book of the Ketuvim, the division of Jewish scripture known as the Writings. According to the baraita (extra-Mishnaic Tannaitic teaching) on Bava Batra 14a-b, the Men of the Great Assembly (Anshei Knesset ha-Gedola) formulated Megillat Esther, one of the Five Scrolls read on different liturgical occasions. Unlike Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) and Shir ha-Shirim (the Song of Songs)—attributed to Melech Shlomo (King Solomon) and which, according to the baraita, were edited by “Chizkiah and his successors” (חִזְקִיָּה וְסִיעָתוֹ)¹—Megillat Esther was not subject to dispute about its canonical status. (On that dispute, see Mishnah Yadayim 3:5 and Shabbat 30b). However, Megillat Esther does not contain the Divine Name at all and seems focused on human, rater than Divine, forces and events. This seeming tension with its inclusion among the books of Tanach is raised by a passage on Chullin 139b, which asks where in the Torah we find mention of the central figures in the Purim story told in the Megilla. To this the Gemara responds:

המן מן התורה מנין (בראשית ג, יא) המן העץ אסתר מן התורה מנין (דברים לא, יח) ואנכי הסתר אסתיר מרדכי מן התורה מנין דכתיב (שמות ל, כג) מר דרור ומתרגמינן מירא דכיא:

They also asked Rav Mattana: From where in the Torah can one find an allusion to the hanging of Haman? He replied: The verse states after Adam ate from the tree of knowledge: “Have you eaten of [hamin] the tree, about which I commanded you that you should not eat?” (Bereshit 3:11). Hamin is spelled in the same manner as Haman: Heh, mem, nun. They also asked Rav Mattana: From where in the Torah can one find an allusion to the events involving Esther? He replied to them that the verse states: “Then My anger shall be kindled against them on that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall come upon them; so that they will say in that day: Have not these evils come upon us because our G-d is not among us? And I will hide [haster astir] My face on that day for all the evil which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned to other gods” (Devarim 31:17–18). They also asked him: From where in the Torah can one find an allusion to the greatness bestowed upon Mordechai? He replied: As it is written with regard to the anointing oil in the Tabernacle: “And you shall also take the chief spices, of flowing myrrh [mor deror]” (Shemot 30:23); and we translate mor dror into Aramaic as: Mira dakhya, which resembles the name Mordechai.

In other words, interpretive work is required in order to explain the meaning and significance of Megillat Esther. In antiquity, in a process ongoing through the Middle Ages, this was accomplished by multiple Aramaic translations. In the case of Megillat Esther, the Targums, which form two major groupings, are particularly expansive, including a great deal of interpretation as well as translation into the lingua franca of later Jewish antiquity.