The story of Jacob's ladder in Genesis 28 is one of the most famous visions in all of scripture—a ladder reaching to heaven, angels ascending and descending. But the Targum Jonathan surrounds this vision with an entire framework of miracles the Hebrew Bible never mentions.
Before Jacob even arrives at Bethel, the Targum lists five miraculous signs. First, the hours of the day were shortened and the sun set early, because God's Word desired to speak with him. Second, the four stones Jacob set as his pillow merged overnight into a single stone. Third, the massive stone covering the well—which normally required all the gathered flocks' shepherds to roll away—Jacob lifted with one arm. Fourth, the well overflowed and the water rose to its brim, and it continued overflowing for the entire twenty years Jacob spent in Haran. Fifth, the road itself contracted, so that a journey of many days was completed in a single day.
The ladder vision gets its own layer of interpretation. The angels ascending aren't anonymous. The Targum identifies them as the two angels who had gone to Sodom—the ones who destroyed the city in Genesis 19. They had been expelled from heaven for revealing divine secrets, and had wandered the earth ever since. When Jacob left his father's house, these exiled angels accompanied him to Bethel. Now they finally ascended back to heaven, and they announced to the other angels: "Come, see Jacob the pious, whose likeness is inlaid in the Throne of Glory, and whom you have so greatly desired to behold." The rest of the heavenly host descended to look at the man whose face was carved into God's throne.
Jacob's vow is also transformed. In the Hebrew, he simply asks God to be with him and give him food and clothing. The Targum adds three specific conditions: protection from shedding innocent blood, from idolatry, and from sexual immorality. These are the three cardinal sins of Jewish law—the ones a person must die rather than commit. Jacob isn't asking for safety. He's asking for moral preservation.
The stone pillar Jacob sets up becomes, in the Targum's telling, the foundation stone of the future Temple: "This stone which I have set for a pillar shall be ordained for the house of the sanctuary of the Lord, and upon it shall generations worship." Bethel isn't just a place where Jacob slept. It's the site where the Temple will stand, and Jacob is its first builder.