"Thus the text from Genesis xlix. 18, _I have waited for thy salvation, O Jehovah_, is paraphrased as follows in the Jerusalem Targum: _Our father Jacob said thus: My soul expects not the redemption of Gideon the son of Joash, which is a temporal salvation; nor the redemption of Samson, which is a transitory salvation; but the redemption which thou didst promise should come through thy Word to thy people. This salvation my soul waits for._ Thus the same text is paraphrased by Jonathan with a direct application to the Messiah; whence again we find it to be the established doctrine of the ancient Hebrew Church, that the Messiah and the Word were the same person. Our father Jacob said: _I do not expect the deliverance of Gideon the son of Joash, which is a temporal salvation; nor that of Samson the son of Manoah, which is a transient salvation; but I expect the redemption of Messiah the son of David, who shall come to gather to himself the children of Israel._ "The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan were written immediately before the time of Christ, and among the Jews they are in such high esteem, that they hold them to be of the same authority with the original text. Of this extravagant honor the ground is, that those two interpreters committed to writing the ancient oral traditions, which [they supposed] had come down in regular descent from their first communication to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai. "Such an opinion proves at least the high antiquity of the sentiments contained in those Targums; and, as the Targums themselves were composed before the Christian era, they must clearly be viewed as exhibiting the doctrine of the Levitical Church ere an inveterate hatred of the gospel led to a suppression or concealment of the ancient faith. "The later Targums were written subsequent to the time of our Lord; but so far as regards the present argument, their importance is not the less on that account. Those of Onkelos and Jonathan show the tenets of the Hebrew Church _before_ Christ; those which are later prove, by their accordance with their predecessors, that the same doctrine continued in full force during the first centuries _after_ the Christian era. Thus, notwithstanding Jesus of Nazareth was denied to be the Messiah, the Jews," [meaning of course the old school, orthodox party,] "it is plain from the written evidence of the later Targums, did not immediately depart from the sentiments of their forefathers relative to _the character_ of the Messiah."