The Aramaic Bible · the Torah
Targum Onkelos Deuteronomy · chapter 34
Aramaic public domain · English Bible (BSB)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.
Tap any Aramaic word to trace it to its Jastrow dictionary entry.
Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which faces Jericho. And the LORD showed him the whole land — from Gilead as far as Dan,
all of Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea,
the Negev, and the region from the Valley of Jericho (the City of Palms) all the way to Zoar.
And the LORD said to him, “This is the land that I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you will not cross into it.”
So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, as the LORD had said.
And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab facing Beth-peor, and no one to this day knows the location of his grave.
Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak, and his vitality had not diminished.
The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end.
Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites obeyed him and did as the LORD had commanded Moses.
Since that time, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face—
no prophet who did all the signs and wonders that the LORD sent Moses to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his officials and all his land,
and no prophet who performed all the mighty acts of power and awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.
Aramaic. Targum Onkelos, Aramaic: 'Onkelos Deuteronomy' (public domain), served by the Sefaria v3 API (sefaria.org)
English. The Masoretic Torah verse (Berean Standard Bible, public domain), shown for reference, Targum Onkelos is the ancient Aramaic rendering of this verse.
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.