01_AzuelosVoltaggio_161_178_copia_161_178 10/07/15 11:33 Pagina 165 165 THE “ANGEL SENT FROM BEFORE THE LORD” IN TARGUM JOSHUA 5,14 165 this “man”? What is his function here? In Josh 5,13, Targum Jonathan translates the term vya literally as arbg. Targum Jonathan Josh 5,13: hybrxw hylbql ~yaq arbg ahw azxw yhwny[ @qzw wxyryb [Xwhy hwh dk hwhw .anbbd yl[bl ~a atyta and[smlh hyl rmaw hytwl [Xwhy lzaw hydyb apylX “Then it came about when Joshua was near Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and saw and behold, a man was standing in front of him and his sword was drawn in his hand. So Joshua went to him and said to him: ‘Have you come to support us or our enemies?’”. The opening of the revelation scene in Joshua is reminiscent, in its literary structure, of the scene of the three angels appearing before Abraham in Genesis 18. In Josh 5,13, Joshua “looked up and saw a man standing before him” and, in Gen 18,2, Abraham “looked up and saw three men standing before him”. Further on in both texts, it becomes clear that the “man” appearing to Joshua and the “men” appearing to Abraham are angels. However, in Genesis the identification is explicit: Abraham’s visitors are identified ex- plicitly as “angels” in Gen 19,1. This is not the case in Joshua. In Josh 5,14-15, the term “man” (vya) is translated by Targum Jo- nathan as “the angel sent from before the Lord” (!m xylXd akalm ywy ~dq). Presumably, the term used in the translation changes at this stage because the “man” appearing to Joshua names himself the “commander of the army of the Lord,” and can thereafter be identified as an angel of the Lord. A targumic tosefta to Josh 5,13 from the Genizah differs sub- stantially from Targum Jonathan, which, as noted, initially main- tains the literal translation of vya as arbg. It is only in the second stage of the story that the “man” (vya) is identified as an angel of the Lord, thereby giving the impression that Joshua is initially un- aware of the true identity of the figure standing before him and be- lieves him to be an ordinary “man” whom he addresses forcefully. Only after the “man” identifies himself as the “commander of the army of the Lord,” does Joshua’s demeanor change as he falls to the ground before him in awe. The Genizah tosefta, in contrast, im- “Joshua Son of Nun in the History of Biblical Tradition”, Tarb. 73 (2003- 2004) 333-364 (Hebrew).