Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 7:21 is short and unbearable. Every bird. Every domestic animal. Every wild beast. Every crawling creature. And every one of the sons of men. Expired, the Aramaic says — the breath left them.
The Targum does not soften it. It will not let us skim. Notice the order: fowl, cattle, wild beasts, creeping things, and only at the end, the sons of men. Humanity is the last item on a grief list it was supposed to lead. Adam was placed at the top of creation to steward it. Here he is placed at the bottom of the list of the dead, because the corruption began with him and pulled everything down with it.
The Maggid pauses on this verse and refuses to rush past it. The Flood is not a storybook. It is the deep Jewish teaching that human choices reverberate through every creature and every field. The takeaway, heavy as it is: the care of the earth was entrusted to us, and when we betray that trust, the whole breathing world is the one that pays. Tread gently. The breath of every living thing is in the balance.