Targum

Targum, any of the Aramaic translations, more or less literal, of portions of the Old Testament used in the synagogues of Palestine and Babylonia. When, after the Babylonian Captivity in the 6th century bc, Aramaic replaced Hebrew as the generally spoken language, it became necessary to explain the meaning of readings from the Scriptures. Only a small portion of the many oral Targums that were produced survived. Among these are the originally Judean Targum known as the Targum Onkelos; three late and incomplete Targums, the so-called Jerusalem Targums, on the Pentateuch; the Judean Targum on the Prophets; later fragments of another paraphrase of the Prophets; and Targums on Psalms, Job, Proverbs, the five so-called megillahs (Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, Ecclesiastes), Chronicles, and the deuterocanonical additions to Esther.