Dan Klein's Footnote Mystery On Shadal's Comment To Genesis 17:6

Before God commands Abraham to perform circumcision on himself and the males of his household, He promises Abraham yet again that he will be great, and will have large nations comes from him.

Genesis 17:6 states (Dan Klein's English translation of Shadal's Italian translation of the Torah): "I will cause you to proliferate greatly; I will make you into nations, and kings will descend from you."

Shadal, Rabbi Samuel David Luzzatto, in his commentary to this verse, deals with an issue in Onkelos (Dan Klein's translation from the Hebrew):

ומלכים – אתנך לגוים, ולא גוים פחותים ומשועבדים לגוים אחרים, אלא גוים שיש להם מלך, ואנקלוס הגדיל הענין לתפארת האומה ואמר ומלכין דשלטין בעממיא, ואולי מפני שבימיו לא היה מלך בישראל, רצה שיהיה בתרגומו רמז לימים הראשונים שהיו בישראל מלכים ששלטו גם בשאר אומות, וגם רמז לימות המשיח. ואולי טעות סופרים הוא ואשגרת לישנא הוא, כי למטה פסוק ט״ז כתוב מלכי עמים ממנה יהיו, ושם יפה מתורגם מלכין דשלטין בעממיא, ומשם באה המליצה הזאת לכאן, וכיוצא בזה בשמות ח׳:כ״ד ובס׳ ויקרא כ״ו ל״א.

kings. I will make you into nations, and not inferior ones subject to others, but nations that have a king. Onkelos enlarged on this theme to glorify the Jewish people, and translated the phrase as u-malkhin de-shallitin be-amemayya ("kings who rule over nations"). Perhaps because in his time there was no king in Israel, he wanted his translation to allude to the early days when Israel had kings who rule over other peoples, and also to hint at the Messianic era.

But perhaps this is only a scribal error due to confusion with another phrase, for below at v. 16 it is written, "Kings of peoples will descend from you," and there it is well translated  malkhin de-shallitin be-amemayya. Perhaps from there the expression came here; cf. Ex. 8:24 and Lev. 26:31.

Klein has a footnote to the very end here, where he writes, "The reason these verses are cited here is unclear."

To recap, Onkelos on our verse adds a phrase not in the verse in his translation. Our verse had said, "kings will descend from you," but Onkelos adds "kings who rule over nations will descend..." Shadal first suggests that this is part of Onkelos' general program to increase the glory and pride of the Jewish people, as well as to get in references to the redemption.

But his second suggestion is that this is actually a mistake in our text, and in fact it should just say "u-malkhin." According to this, somebody copying Onkelos accidentally or on purpose transferred a similar phrase from ten verses later and copied it here.

He proceeds to cite two examples, but doesn't explain it at all, thus Dan Klein's head scratch in the footnotes.

I am happy to say that with a little digging of my own, I was able to discover what Shadal had in mind.

Exodus 8:24 states:

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר פַּרְעֹ֗ה אָנֹכִ֞י אֲשַׁלַּ֤ח אֶתְכֶם֙ וּזְבַחְתֶּ֞ם לַיהוָ֤ה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶם֙ בַּמִּדְבָּ֔ר רַ֛ק הַרְחֵ֥ק לֹא־תַרְחִ֖יקוּ לָלֶ֑כֶת הַעְתִּ֖ירוּ בַּעֲדִֽי׃ 

Pharaoh said, “I will let you go to sacrifice to the LORD your God in the wilderness; but do not go very far. Plead for me.”

The last clause of this verse says, "Plead for me." Yet if you look at Onkelos in most regular copies of Onkelos (there are other versions that don't have this issue), it states at the end:

וַאֲמַר פַּרְעֹה אֲנָא אֲשַׁלַח יָתְכוֹן וְתִדְבְּחוּן קֳדָם יְיָ אֱלָהָכוֹן בְּמַדְבְּרָא לְחוֹד אַרְחָקָא לָא תְרַחֲקוּן לְמֵיזַל צַלוֹ אַף עָלָי:

Onkelos adds in "af", as in, "Plead also for me." Where does Onkelos get this "af" from?

(My immediate answer when I saw this was to look at the letters to see if Onkelos saw a letter at the end of a word also applying to the beginning of the next word. In this case, it might be a stretch, but Onkelos might have saw the verse as saying, "Don't go too far. Pray. And for me." Meaning, the vav of ha-atiru might have gone on the next word. Very much a stretch, but I like the theory anyway and want to apply it as much as I can.)

The book Marpe Lashon on Onkelos suggests that "af" is a mistake in this Onkelos, and was mistakenly taken from a few chapters later, Exodus 12:32:

גַּם־צֹאנְכֶ֨ם גַּם־בְּקַרְכֶ֥ם קְח֛וּ כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר דִּבַּרְתֶּ֖ם וָלֵ֑כוּ וּבֵֽרַכְתֶּ֖ם גַּם־אֹתִֽי׃

Take also your flocks and your herds, as you said, and begone! And may you bring a blessing upon me also!”

Onkelos translates these words, "bring a blessing upon me also" (also being in the verse itself), as:

אַף עַנְכוֹן אַף תּוֹרְכוֹן דְבָרוּ כְּמָא דִי מַלֵלְתֻּן וֶאֱזִילוּ וְצַלוֹ אַף עָלָי:

So the exact phrase is moved mistakenly to an earlier verse and a word is added in.

Now onto the next example, Leviticus 26:31. The verse states:

וְנָתַתִּ֤י אֶת־עָֽרֵיכֶם֙ חׇרְבָּ֔ה וַהֲשִׁמּוֹתִ֖י אֶת־מִקְדְּשֵׁיכֶ֑ם וְלֹ֣א אָרִ֔יחַ בְּרֵ֖יחַ נִיחֹֽחֲכֶֽם׃ 

And I will make your cities a waste, and will bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.

How does Onkelos translate this word, "harbah"? Once again, this is subject to girsa issues, with some have Onkelos translating "harbah" as "harba" (with an alef and not a het), both meaning "waste." But the regular edition has the translation as "צָדָא", which can also mean "waste," or "snare," "exposed to mockery," but most likely "desolation." The issue with this is that the next part of the verse also says "desolation," and uses a different word, yet according to this, Onkelos translates it the same with the word "וְאֶצְדֵי יָת מַקְדְשֵׁיכוֹן", which removes the poetry and is just bad translating.

The book Beurei Onkelos on Onkelos suggests a similar answer as we have seen. That is, if you look just two verses later at 26:33, it has many of the same phrases, and intersperses harba and tzada, which got transferred earlier and incorrectly. (This one is admittedly a little weak, since it's not an exact phrase accidentally copies, as it was in previous examples)

Rabbi Dr. Raphael Pozen quotes both of these in his masterful Parshegen. Thus, we have figured out what Shadal's purpose was here.