01_AzuelosVoltaggio_161_178_copia_161_178 10/07/15 11:33 Pagina 175 175 THE “ANGEL SENT FROM BEFORE THE LORD” IN TARGUM JOSHUA 5,14 175 seems that Joshua’s question to the angel (“For which of them [duties] have you come?”, atta !whnm !ydah l[), and the angel’s reply, iden- tifying one of the two tasks, emerge from the assumption that each angel has a single duty. Thus we understand the concluding sentence to be the words of the angel responding to Joshua’s prayer, rather than Joshua’s words. In this version, it is the angel who says: “All that was spoken from before the Lord Most High we will accomplish it and do it” (hdb[mlw hmlXal anyl[ yy ~dq !m rmatdm lk). The targumic translation here of “commander of the Lord’s army” (hwhy-abc-rf ) as “an angel sent from before the Lord” (ywy ~dq !m xylX $alm) or “the angel that was sent from before the Lord” (ywy ~dq !m xylXd akalm) differs stylistically from the trans- lation in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of the Pentateuch, where the biblical term “angel” in its non-corporeal meaning is translated as $alm or akalm. In cases where the angel appears adjacent to one of God’s names, it is translated as Œhd akalm (“the angel of the Lord”) 47. Nonetheless, nowhere in the Aramaic Targums of the Pentateuch is there a description as expansive or unusual as the one in the “commander of the Lord’s army” scene in Joshua, where the targumists take a step beyond merely noting that he is an angel and add a definition of his role as an emissary of God 48. This additional definition works, in fact, to preclude an interpretation of the world of angels as a hierarchy, as a place where angels have specific roles or the ability to act independently. This is why “commander of the army of the Lord” is translated simply as “angel”, without embellish- ments 49, emphasizing that he is not an independent entity acting upon his own volition, but rather an emissary acting in the service of God. It is probable that this targumic elaboration is the result of the fact that the term “angel” does not appear explicitly in the He- brew text of Joshua, although its nature becomes evident further on; therefore it is translated as “an angel sent from before the Lord” or “the angel sent from before the Lord”. 47 See AZUELOS, The Angelology, 36-38. 48 See W. SMELIK, The Targum of Judges (OTS 36; Leiden – New York – Köln 1955) 352-353, for a similar phenomenon in Judg 2,2. 49 Cf. KASHER, “Angelology”, 169.