Thus, drawing on sources that they never cited, the very early Onkelos (c. 35–120 CE) interpolated the term in his Aramaic translation of many Torah verses. “May God … dwell in the tents of Shem” (Genesis 9:27) becomes “May God cause His Shechina to dwell in the dwelling places of Shem”; “And they shall make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst” (Exodus 25:8) becomes “… I will cause My Shechina to dwell among them”; and “But only to the place which God your Lord will choose from all your tribes, to set His Name there; you shall inquire after His dwelling and come there” (Deuteronomy 12:5) becomes “But unto the place which God your Lord will chose His Shechina to dwell there, even to the House of His Shechina… ”. And the even earlier Yonatan Ben Uzziel (ca. 450 B.C.E.) translated “Holy, holy, holy is God Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”” (Isaiah 6:3) as “… holy in the highest and exalted heavens is the House of His Shechina, holy upon the earth is the work of His might, holy forever… the whole earth is full of the brightness of His Glory”.
(c) 2013 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org
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Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).
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