“Have no fear of the people of this country, for they are our prey: their protection has departed from them, but God is with us” Numbers 14:9
June 10, 2015 15:24Moses, Joshua, Caleb and the 10 princely spies struggle with the people on the borders of the land of Canaan. They fear the land, its people, even the size of its very fruit! "Do not fear the people of the land, they are our lachmeinu - prey," meaning literally "our bread", and a word closely related to milchamah, war.
The Targum or Aramaic translation of Onkelos is printed right next to the Hebrew text in every classical edition of the Torah. Today it is hard to read, in obscure Palestinian Aramaic. But in the first few centuries of the Common Era Palestine that didn't matter because it was everyday speech, recited by heart, alongside the Torah reading. Onkelos's words are a bit of a theological revolution. "Do not fear the people of the country, for they will be delivered into our hands, their strength has passed from them, the word/command of God is our support."
Two things are happening. For Onkelos, it is God's word and command that holds the potential for power. Secondly, God is sa'adna, meaning our support, our sustenance; this word can even mean our food. In this version of the text, God's presence is not a guarantee that we will win, but rather God offers a means of our survival. (I would add, even if we are not victorious.) These first-century thinkers even remove the image of our enemies from the text. No mention of our lechem, our prey. Here, the only sustenance comes directly from God. This view, I think, is more theologically useful and more realistic. And I suspect that the Jews living under Roman occupation in first and second century Palestine thought so as well.