The Aramaic Bible · the Torah
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Leviticus · chapter 17
Aramaic public domain · English by Etheridge (1862)What is the Aramaic Bible?
After the exile, most Jews spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew, so in the synagogue each Scripture reading was followed by an Aramaic translation read aloud, so ordinary people could follow. Those translations are the Aramaic Bible. Scholars call them the Targums.
Why it’s worth reading: a Targum doesn’t just translate, it quietly explains as it goes. So it’s a window into how the first Jewish readers actually understood a passage. Famously, the Aramaic of Isaiah 53 names the servant “the Messiah” outright.
Why it reads differently from your Bible: a Targum doesn’t just translate, it interprets as it goes, so its wording often expands or differs from the plain Hebrew. That difference is the window into how the first readers understood it.
Tap any Aramaic word to trace it to its Jastrow dictionary entry.
And the Lord spake with Mosheh, saying:
Speak with Aharon and with his sons, and with the sons of Israel, and tell them: This is the word which the Lord hath commanded, saying:
A man of the house of Israel, young or old, who shall kill as a sacrifice a bullock, or lamb, or goat in the camp, or who killeth it without the camp,
and bringeth it not to the door of the tabernacle of ordinance to offer it an oblation before the Lord, before the tabernacle of the Lord, the blood of slaughter shall be reckoned to that man, and it shall be to him as if he had shed innocent blood, and that man shall be destroyed from his people.
In order that the sons of Israel may bring their sacrifices which they have heretofore killed on the face of the field, they may henceforth bring them before the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of ordinance, unto the priest, and sacrifice their consecrated victims before the Lord.
And the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of ordinance, and burn the fat, to be received with acceptance before the Lord.
Neither shall they offer any more their sacrifices unto idols which are like unto demons, after which they have wandered. This shall be an everlasting statute to them, unto their generations.
And thou shalt tell them: A man, whether young or old, of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among you, who shall sacrifice a burnt offering, or consecrated oblation,
and bring it not to the door of the tabernacle of ordinance, to be made an oblation before the Lord, that man shall be destroyed from his people.
A man also, whether young or old, of the house of the family of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn, in dwelling among them, who shall eat any blood, I will cause employment to turn away (or cease) from that man who eateth any blood, and will destroy him from among his people.
Because the subsistence of the life of all flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you for a decree, that you shall bring the blood of the victim unto the altar to make atonement for the blood of your lives, because the blood of the victim is to atone for the guilt of the soul.
Therefore have I said to the sons of Israel, Beware lest any man among you eat the blood. Neither shall the strangers who sojourn by dwelling among you eat the blood.
And any man, whether young or old, of the house of the stock of Israel, or of the sojourners who sojourn by dwelling among you, who hunteth venison of beast or fowl proper to be eaten, shall pour out its blood when it is killed; and if what he hath killed be not destroyed (or strangled?), let the blood be covered with dust.
Because the subsistence of the life of all flesh is its blood; it is its life; and I have told the sons of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any flesh; for the subsistence of the life of all flesh is its blood: whosoever among you eateth it shall be destroyed.
And any man who shall eat flesh which hath been thrown away on account of having been strangled (or corrupted), or the flesh of that which hath been torn, (any man,) whether native or sojourner, shall wash his clothes, and bathe in forty seahs of water, and be unclean until evening when he shall be clean;
but if he be perverse and will not wash, nor bathe his flesh, he shall bear his transgression.
Aramaic. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Aramaic: 'Targum Jonathan on Leviticus' (public domain), served by the Sefaria v3 API (sefaria.org)
English. English: J. W. Etheridge (1862) (Public Domain) — an established translation of the Targum itself, joined by verse number. Never an AI rendering (BB-42).
We show the license-cleared original Aramaic and an established English translation, each Aramaic word traceable to a public-domain lexicon. We never machine-translate a primary text.