Targum Jonathan transforms the dry legal code of (Deuteronomy 19) into something visceral. Where the Torah simply warns that the blood avenger might overtake a fleeing killer, the Targum says the avenger pursues with "his heart boiling within him on account of his grief." That phrase, the boiling heart, appears nowhere in the Hebrew. It is the Targum's own psychological portrait of a man consumed by rage and sorrow.
The accidental manslayer's example gets vivid physical detail. The iron flies "apart from the haft" and lights on a neighbor. The Targum wants you to see the axe head spinning through the air. It specifies the killer "had not kept enmity against him yesterday, or the day before," turning the Torah's legal language into something closer to courtroom testimony.
On the expansion of cities of refuge, the Targum adds a conditional promise. If God enlarges the border "as He hath sworn to your fathers," then Israel must add three more cities to the original three, for a total of six. The purpose is stated with brutal clarity: "that innocent blood may not be shed in your land."
The witness laws receive the Targum's most significant theological addition. Where the Torah requires two or three witnesses, Targum Jonathan inserts a remarkable clause: "by the Word of the Lord, to insure retribution upon secret crimes." Even when human witnesses fail, God's Memra. His divine Word, ensures justice for hidden sins. The Targum also specifies that false witnesses face exactly the punishment "they had devised to do against their brother." And the lex talionis gets softened, "the value of an eye for an eye, the value of a tooth for a tooth", making explicit the rabbinic interpretation that monetary compensation, not physical mutilation, is what the law demands.
When the Lord your God shall have destroyed the nations whose land the Lord your God giveth you, and you possess them, and dwell in their cities and houses,
three cities shall you set apart within your land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit.
You shall prepare a high road, and divide your limit which the Lord your God bestoweth upon you, that any manslayer may flee thither.
And this is the regulation for the manslayer who fleeth thither that he may live: Whoever shall have killed his brother without intention, he not having kept enmity against him yesterday, or the day before,
(as for example) if any one goeth with his neighbour into the thicket to cut wood, and he driveth his hand with the axe to cut wood, and the iron flieth apart from the haft and lighteth on his neighbour that be die, he may flee to one of those appointed cities, and. save his life.
Lest the avenger of blood follow after him his heart boiling within him on account of his grief, and apprehend him, if the way be long, and take his life, though he is not guilty of the judgment of death, because he had not enmity against him in time past.
Therefore I command you today that you set apart for you three cities.
And if the Lord your God enlarge your border, as He hath sworn to your fathers, and give you all the land which He Hath sworn to your fathers to give,
then shall you keep all this commandment which today I command you to do, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and walk in the ways which are right before Him all days; and you shall add yet three cities to those three;
that innocent blood may not be shed in your land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and the guilt of the judgment of death may not be upon you.
But if a man with enmity against his neighbour shall lay wait for him in secret, to destroy his life, and he die, then should he flee into one of those cities,
the sages of his cities shall send and take him thence, and give him up into the hand of the pursuer for blood, and he shall be put to death.
Your eye shall not spare him, but you shall put away shedders of innocent blood from Israel, that it may be well with you.
You shall not remove the boundary mark of your neighbours which the predecessors did set for the limit in your possession of inheritance in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit.
The testimony of one (witness) shall not be valid against a man for any crime (regarding the taking) of life, or guilt concerning money, or any sin with which one may be charged with sinning; but, by the Word of the Lord, (to insure) retribution upon secret crimes, (while) one witness may swear to deny what hath been attested against him, the sentence shall be confirmed upon the mouth of two witnesses, or of three.
When false witnesses stand up against a man to testify wrong things against him,
then the two men between whom lies the subject of contention shall stand in the presence of the Lord, before the priests and judges who will be in those days:
and the judges shall question the witnesses of their times fairly; and, behold, false testimony is in the mouth of the witnesses; they have borne false witness against their brother.
And so shall you do unto them as they had devised to do against their brother, and you shall put down the doers of evil from among you.
And the wicked who remain will hear and be afraid, and not add to repeat an evil thing like this among you.
Your eye shall not spare; life for life, the value of an eye for an eye, the value of a tooth for a tooth, the value of a hand for a hand, the value of a foot for a foot.
