Nowadays, the only Jewish community with a custom to recite the Aramiac targum translation of the Torah portion is the Yemenites. But this was not always the case. For a very long time, Ashkenazim, Italkim, and some other related communities preserved a custom to read the targum on two specific days — the seventh day of Pesaḥ and the first day of Shavuot (Maḥzor Vitry, Hilkhot Pesaḥ 106:7). On those two days, mass communal miracles happened to the Jewish people — the splitting of the sea on the former, the revelation at Sinai on the latter — and the targum, the translation designed for the purpose of making the story accessible, was preserved for the sake of pirsumei nissa. Since the use of targum became a special rare occasion, Jews did what we do for special rare occasions — we write piyyutim. An extensive series of Aramaic piyyutim were written, to be inserted into the recitation of the targum (or the ‘seder meturgeman’) itself. On Shavuot, a massive series of piyyutim, one for every one of the ten commandments and then some, were written. On Pesaḥ, a similar number of piyyutim were composed for important moments. Since the mass acceptance of the Shulḥan Arukh, the custom of the recitation of the targum on these special days has been lost from Ashkenazi practice, and as a consequence the vast majority of the seder meturgeman piyyutim themselves have been abandoned. A small number of Shavuot seder meturgeman piyyutim are still in use (specifically, Aḳdamut Milin and Yetsiv Pitgam), but taken out of their original context. (As an example, why do we read Yetsiv Pitgam after the first verse of the haftarah? Because it’s meant to introduce the targum!) I personally love Aramaic, piyyutim, and liturgy, so I’ve taken it upon myself to translate a selection of seder meturgeman piyyutim.

This piyyut, “Itgabar,” was originally written as an introduction to the sixth commandment, the commandment of not murdering. It is a poetic retelling of the death of Joab in I Kings 2:28-34. Joab, the leader of David’s armies, was a notoriously violent man, the slaughterer of Abner and Amasa. He died in a correspondingly violent way, struck down by Benaiah son of Jehoiada within the Tabernacle itself. Surprisingly enough, this poem frames Solomon as an unjust and cruel ruler, treating Joab’s death as a tragedy rather than the quid-pro-quo consequence it is portrayed as in Kings. In this location, it almost goes so far as to calling Solomon himself a murderer.

The text here is as found in the Goldschmidt maḥzor, with some major textual variants (those that affect the meaning rather than just the spelling) marked. Also included is an phonetic alphabetical acrostic translation.