Our Old Testament except for a few verses was written in Hebrew. After the Jews were taken to Babylon and then regathered after 70 years, many had picked up the language of Bablylon and Hebrew was becoming unfamiliar. In Nehemiah chapter 8 it is recorded that the people came together to hear the Bible read. Ezra the priest stood on a high platform and read from the Scriptures. Ezra is called a cohen or priest and a Torah teacher in
Neh. 8:9. Earlier verses say that Ezra opened the scroll and read. As he read the Scriptures were explained and translated so the people could understand. This was probably in the fall or October of 445 B.C. The Hebrew scriptures were explained or paraphrased in the Aramaic language which they had brought from Bablylon.
Later in the synagogues where Jews gathered, when the Scriptures were read in Hebrew they would be explained or paraphrased verse by verse in a commonly understood language. These oral explanations were called Targums or Targamim which was plural for targum or Aramaic. At first these targums were not supposed to be written down but later were. There are two targums from around the first century that are still around. One is called the Jonathan Targum and one is called the Onkelos Targum.
A parallel to this would be our modern paraphases which are meant to simplify the older unfamiliar language that was used in England in the seventeenth century and is found in our King James Bible.
Just for something interesting, here is
Deuteronomy 22:5 from the Johathan Targum
"Neither fringed robes nor tephillin which are the ornaments of a man shall be upon a woman;
neither shall a man shave himself so as to appear like a woman; for every one who doeth so is an abomination before the Lord thy God."
From what I understand, that would be the way a first century Jew or Christian would hear that verse read in his language at the synagog. I don't know just how that would go over in a UPC church today which discourages facial hair on men and pants on women.
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