face

Targumim (or: Targums) are translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic. They were translated and used when Jewish congregations increasingly could not understand the biblical Hebrew anymore. Targum Onqelos (also: Onkelos) is the name of the Aramaic translation of the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) probably composed in Israel/Palestine in the 1st or 2nd century CE and later edited in Babylon in the 4th or 5th century, making it reflect Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. It is the most famous Aramaic translation and was widely used throughout the Jewish communities.

In many, but not all, cases the translation of Targum Onqelos avoids anthropomorphisms (attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions) as they relate in the original Hebrew text to God.

The Hebrew of Leviticus 17:10, 20:3, 20:5, and 26:17 that is typically translated in English as “face” is translated in Targum Onqelos as “anger” or “wrath” (Source: Schochet 1966, p. 15)

See also face.

Translation commentary on Leviticus 17:10

Any man of the house of Israel: see verse 3.

Strangers …: see verse 8. Compare also 16.29.

Eats any blood: it may be necessary to say “eats any meat from which the blood has not been drained” in many languages. Since blood is liquid, it cannot be “eaten” in many cultures. Moffatt‘s “tastes any blood” is probably too strong a statement. New Jerusalem Bible makes the prohibition more general with “consumes blood.”

I will set my face against: if the receptor-language translation has chosen to use indirect rather than direct quotation, then the pronoun I should be translated “the LORD.” The expression “set one’s face against” may be translated in some languages as “turn one’s back on” or “look away from” (see 20.3, 6; 26:17; Ezek 14.8; 15.7). The basic meaning is “to reject” or “to repudiate,” implying hostile action.

Against that person who eats blood: since this expression has already been used at the beginning of this verse, it may be replaced by a pronoun here, “against him,” or else simply “against that person.”

Cut off …: in this context it is the LORD who is the subject of the verb (the pronoun I in the more literal rendering of Revised Standard Version). The basic meaning of the verb is, however, essentially the same as in verses 4 and 9 as well as in 7.20, where it is passive in form. See the remarks at 7.20.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .