“Thus, in paraphrasing a text from Deuteronomy iv. 7, Jonathan writes: God is near in the name of the Word of Jehovah; in paraphrasing a text of Hosea iv. 9, God will receive the prayer of Israel by his Word, and have mercy upon them, and will make them by his Word like a beautiful fig tree. And in paraphrasing a text of Jeremiah xxix. 14: I will be sought by you in my Word, and I will be inquired of by you through my Word. Thus likewise where Abraham is said by Moses to have called on the name of Jehovah the everlasting God, he is described by the Targum of Jerusalem as praying in the name of the Word of Jehovah, the God of the world.
“They speak of him as making atonement for sin.
“Thus, in paraphrasing a text of Deuteronomy, (xxxii. 43,) Jonathan writes: God will atone by his Word for his land and for his people, even a people saved by the Word of Jehovah.
“They exhibit him as a Redeemer.
“Thus the text from Genesis xlix. 18, I have waited for thy salvation, O Jehovah, is paraphrased as follows in the Jerusalem Targum: Our father Jacob said thus: My soul expects not the redemption of Gideon the son of Joash, which is a temporal salvation; nor the redemption of Samson, which is a transitory salvation; but the redemption which thou didst promise should come through thy Word to thy people. This salvation my soul waits for. Thus the same text is paraphrased by Jonathan with a direct application to the Messiah; whence again we find it to be the established doctrine of the ancient Hebrew Church, that the Messiah and the Word were the same person. Our father Jacob said: I do not expect the deliverance of Gideon the son of Joash, which is a temporal salvation; nor that of Samson the son of Manoah, which is a transient salvation; but I expect the redemption of Messiah the son of David, who shall come to gather to himself the children of Israel.
“The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan were written immediately before the time of Christ, and among the Jews they are in such high esteem, that they hold them to be of the same authority with the original text. Of this extravagant honor the ground is, that those two interpreters committed to writing the ancient oral traditions, which [they supposed] had come down in regular descent from their first communication to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai.
“Such an opinion proves at least the high antiquity of the sentiments contained in those Targums; and, as the Targums themselves were composed before the Christian era, they must clearly be viewed as exhibiting the doctrine of the Levitical Church ere an inveterate hatred of the gospel led to a suppression or concealment of the ancient faith.
“The later Targums were written subsequent to the time of our Lord; but so far as regards the present argument, their importance is not the less on that account. Those of Onkelos and Jonathan show the tenets of the Hebrew Church before Christ; those which are later prove, by their accordance with their predecessors, that the same doctrine continued in full force during the first centuries after the Christian era. Thus, notwithstanding Jesus of Nazareth was denied to be the Messiah, the Jews,” [meaning of course the old school, orthodox party,] “it is plain from the written evidence of the later Targums, did not immediately depart from the sentiments of their forefathers relative to the character of the Messiah.”
After quoting testimonies from different Jewish Rabbins, he observes: “The reason why the Rabbins pronounced the Messiah to be Jehovah, was this: Following the ancient Targums, which spoke the universally received doctrines of the Hebrew Church, they perceived, like the authors of those Targums, that the Messiah was the same person as the anthropomorphic Word, or Angel of Jehovah. But they knew that the Angel of Jehovah was the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. And they were assured that their pious forefathers did not idolatrously worship a creature, but that they venerated the self-existent God, Jehovah. Hence they rightly determined that Jehovah was the name of the Messiah. This will appear very distinctly, if we attend to their doctrine respecting the great angel whom they cabalistically denominated Metraton.” (Vol. 2, sec. 1, chap. iii.)
The reader will observe that this author construes the formulas Melach Jehovah, Memra Jehovah, &c., in the same way as our translation, Angel of the Lord, Word of the Lord, &c.; and while correctly holding that the Angel or Messenger, and the Logos, Memra, or Word, are personally identical with Jehovah, still indicates a distinction, as though the former persons were sent by the latter. This is undoubtedly inconsistent and unauthorized. Had he in his construction left out the preposition of, as the original does, all would have been clear.