The Targum Jonathan on (Deuteronomy 5) does something extraordinary with the Ten Commandments. Where the Hebrew gives each commandment as a prohibition, the Targum expands every single one into a cosmic warning—explaining which specific plague befalls the world when that commandment is broken.
Each commandment begins with the same formula: "Sons of Israel, My people." This address, absent from the Hebrew, turns the commandments from universal laws into a personal conversation between God and His nation. Then each prohibition is expanded. Murder brings the sword upon the world. Adultery brings plague. Theft brings famine. False witness causes the clouds to gather but the rain to withhold—"dearth cometh on the world." Covetousness causes governments to seize private property and "bondage cometh on the world."
This is not in the Hebrew Bible anywhere. The Targum translators invented an entire theological system where each sin triggers a specific natural disaster. The logic is precise and unflinching. The world itself responds to human moral failure.
The Targum also adds that God does not merely punish children for their parents' sins. He punishes "rebellious children to the third generation and to the fourth of them that hate Me—when the children complete to sin after their fathers." The guilt is conditional. Children inherit punishment only when they continue the pattern. This is a significant theological softening of what many readers find troubling in the Hebrew original.
At Sinai, the people tell Moses they heard God's voice and survived. The Targum adds a remarkable phrase: "This day have we seen that the Lord speaketh with a man in whom is the Holy Spirit, and he remaineth alive." The Hebrew says God speaks with man and he lives. The Targum says God speaks with a man who has the Holy Spirit—Moses—and even he barely survived. The gap between God and humanity is almost unbridgeable.
The chapter ends with a hidden detail. God tells Moses to send the people back to their wives—"he has permitted you to join with your wives since you have been separated three days." At Sinai, Israel practiced abstinence before revelation. The Targum records the moment that restriction was lifted.