Why Pseudo-Jonathan Made Names Do the Work at the Burning Bush

Most readers picture the burning bush as a scene of fire and a voice. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus, the expansive Aramaic Targum preserving older traditions in a later redacted form, hears the same scene as a scene of names.

In the Targum, the call to Moses at the bush, the messages he carries back to Pharaoh, the demands he makes for divine company, and the favor he is finally granted are all transactions in naming. The bush calls Moses by his name twice. The verse names Pharaoh's adversaries as the Jehudaee, the Jews, in the Targum's contemporary vocabulary. Moses demands the name of whoever will accompany him. The Holy One closes the negotiation by referring to the goodly name Moses has been given. Four passages, threaded together, show the Targum's naming engine.

Moses, Moses, the Doubled Name at the Bush

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 3:4 reproduces the doubled call. Mosheh, Mosheh. The Targum, like the Hebrew, presents the doubling without explanation. But the rabbinic tradition treats every doubled name in Tanakh as an intimate calling.

Abraham, Abraham, at the binding of Isaac. Jacob, Jacob, before the descent to Egypt. Samuel, Samuel, in the temple at night. The doubled name, the sages teach, is the form heaven uses when the person being called is about to undertake the most significant act of their life. The first Moses reaches the man standing in front of the bush. The second Moses reaches the man who is about to walk back into Egypt to confront an empire.

The Targum lets the doubling stand. The Aramaic does not paraphrase it away. The text wants the reader to feel the same intimacy. The man whose name was doubled was being called to a job whose name would shortly be doubled too. Prophet of the call. Prophet of the deliverance.

The God of the Jehudaee Speaks to Pharaoh

The Targum shifts its naming choice the moment the message goes to Egypt. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 7:16 renders the message to Pharaoh in Aramaic that names the people Jehudaee. The Jews.

The Hebrew of Exodus calls them Ivrim, Hebrews, or Bnei Yisrael, the children of Israel. The Targum uses the later term that its medieval readers would have recognized. The translation is anachronistic by design. The Targum is telling its readership, in their own contemporary vocabulary, that Pharaoh was being confronted on behalf of a people whose name was, in the listener's lifetime, still being defended in courts and town squares.

The choice of name is itself an act of pastoral care. The Aramaic translator is making sure that the medieval Jew reading or hearing the passage understands that the rescue at the bush was for him, by name. Emancipate My people, the Lord tells Pharaoh, that they may worship before Me. The people, in the Targum's hearing, are not historical. They are present tense.

Moses Demands the Name of His Companion

Then the Targum gives Moses one of his sharpest exchanges with the Holy One. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 33:12, after the golden calf, after the broken tablets, after the threat that an angel rather than the Holy One would lead Israel onward.

Moses presses. Lo, what hast Thou said to me, Take this people up? The Targum preserves the bracing complaint. But Thou hast not made me to know whom Thou wilt send with me. Moses insists on a name. An angel without an identification is not enough. He cites the foundation of his standing. By Thy Word Thou hast said, I have ordained thee with a goodly name, and thou hast found favour before Me.

The Targum's Moses is using the favor of his own name as collateral. You named me yourself, he is in effect saying. You owe me the name of the messenger you propose to send. The negotiation is not flattery. It is bookkeeping. Naming, in the Targum, is contractual.

The Goodly Name God Granted Back

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 33:17 records the response. This thing also which thou hast spoken of, will I do; for thou hast found mercy before Me, and I have ordained thee with a goodly name.

The Holy One agrees. The negotiation is sealed by repeating the very phrase Moses had cited as his collateral. I have ordained thee with a goodly name. The exchange has worked. Moses's invocation of his own name, given to him by the One he is negotiating with, has unlocked the request.

The Targum is doing something theologically careful. The favor that Moses received at the bush, by being named, becomes the credit balance he is permitted to draw on when later petitions arise. Names in the Targum are not just identifiers. They are accounts. Heaven opens an account when it gives the name. The recipient is allowed to make withdrawals against the account when negotiating the next mile of the prophetic work.

Why the Naming Engine Mattered

Stack the four passages and the editorial project of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus becomes visible. The Targum reads the burning bush, the warnings to Pharaoh, and the post-calf negotiations as a single naming sequence.

Moses is called by his name twice, the way the patriarchs were called in their most decisive hours. The people whose deliverance Moses is announcing are renamed in the Targum's later vocabulary so that the medieval Jew reading the passage recognizes himself. Moses demands the name of the angel proposed as companion, refusing to walk forward with an anonymous messenger. And the Holy One grants the request by reciting the same phrase He had used when ordaining Moses in the first place.

The Targum is teaching its reader that no encounter with heaven is fully transacted until the names are right. The bush burned. The voice spoke. The doubled name landed. And from that moment on, every step of the Exodus narrative, in the Aramaic, was an exchange in which the right name, used at the right moment, was the only currency the Holy One and His prophet were willing to accept.