The Hebrew Bible says God told Abraham, "Fear not, I am your shield" (Genesis 15:1). Targum Onkelos renders this as "My Word is your strength." The shield becomes a Word. The protection becomes power. And the entire Covenant Between the Parts unfolds through this lens of divine speech rather than divine physicality.
Abraham's response is raw and human: "My Master, God, what will You give me since I continue to be childless?" (Genesis 15:2). Onkelos translates this without softening. The patriarch is not serene. He is desperate. His heir is a household servant named Eliezer of Damascus, not a son of his own body.
God takes Abraham outside. "Look towards the heavens and count the stars if you are able to count them. So numerous will your descendants be" (Genesis 15:5). Then the verse that defines Abrahamic faith: "He believed in God, and this He accounted to him for righteousness" (Genesis 15:6). Onkelos adds one word: "He believed in the Word of God." Abraham's faith is not in a vague deity. It is in God's specific, articulated promise. Faith, for Onkelos, is trust in divine communication.
The covenant ceremony—the split animals, the vultures, the deep sleep, the smoking furnace and flaming torch passing between the pieces—Onkelos translates as Abraham "sacrificing before" God. The raw, almost primal ritual of the Hebrew becomes a formal offering. And the prophecy of four hundred years of slavery in a foreign land stands unadorned, a preview of the Exodus that will not come for generations.