The property and social laws of (Exodus 22) are terse in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan expands them with legal reasoning, precise conditions, and moral commentary that transforms a list of rules into a miniature legal treatise.
The chapter opens with the law of a thief found breaking in. The Hebrew says if a thief is struck and killed during the break-in, there is no bloodguilt. The Targum adds a crucial distinction: "If the thing be as clear as the sun that he was not entering to destroy life, and one hath killed him, the guilt of the shedding of innocent blood is upon him." The metaphor of sunlight is the Targum's own. If it is daytime and you can clearly see the thief poses no mortal threat, killing him makes you a murderer. Self-defense only applies when the threat is genuinely uncertain.
The laws about bailment—entrusting property to a neighbor for safekeeping—get a critical distinction the Hebrew leaves ambiguous. The Targum differentiates between an unpaid guardian and a paid one. The unpaid guardian can swear an oath and be released from liability. But if the property was stolen "from him who was to receive recompense for the care, he shall make it good to its owner." Paid guardians bear higher responsibility. This is pure rabbinic legal reasoning inserted into the translation.
The prohibition against oppressing strangers gets emotionally sharpened: "ye know the sigh of a stranger's soul." The Hebrew says Israel knows "the soul of a stranger." The Targum adds the sigh—the specific sound of a displaced person's suffering. Having been strangers in Egypt, Israel should recognize that sound.
The Targum's treatment of lending laws is surprisingly tender. God says: "If thou take for a pledge the garment of thy neighbour, thou shalt restore it to him before sunset; for it may be his taleth which alone covereth him." The taleth—a garment with religious significance—cannot be held overnight. And if someone takes "the coverlet of the bed whereon he lies," God declares: "I am Eloah the Merciful." The divine title itself changes when the vulnerable are at stake.