The Targum transforms the Torah's bare itinerary of Israel's wilderness journeys in (Numbers 33) into an annotated guide of miracles and disasters. Every campsite gets a story, a name etymology, or a moral footnote. The journey began at Pelusin—the Targum's name for Rameses—on the fifteenth of Nisan, and the people went forth "with uncovered head, in sight of all the Egyptians." They left not as fugitives but as a liberated nation, heads held high.
Behind them, God's judgment struck Egypt's gods in four distinct ways. "Their molten idols were dissolved, their idols of stone were mutilated, their idols of earthenware broken in pieces, their wooden idols turned to ashes, and their cattle gods were slain with death." Each material received its appropriate destruction—a systematic demolition of an entire theological system.
At Sukkot, the people "were protected by seven glorious clouds." At the Sea of Suph, the Targum adds that the Israelites walked along the shore "collecting onyx stones and pearls"—the sea floor yielded treasure as they crossed. At Elim, the twelve fountains corresponded to the twelve tribes, and the seventy palm trees corresponded to the seventy elders. Nothing in the wilderness was random.
The Targum explains why the well disappeared at certain stations. At Rephidim, "because their hands were neglectful of the words of the law, there was no water for the people to drink"—the name Rephidim itself is decoded as raphin, meaning "slack" or "neglectful." At Hazeroth, "Miriam the prophetess was struck with leprosy." At Kehelath, "Korah and his companions banded together against Moses and Aaron." At Almon Diblathaimah, "the well was hidden from them because they had forsaken the words of the law, which are as delicious as figs"—the name diblatha meaning figs.
Aaron died on Mount Umano "in the fortieth year, in the fifth month, on the first of the month," at one hundred twenty-three years old. The chapter ends with a warning about failing to drive out the Canaanites. The surviving inhabitants "will surround you as shields on your sides, and afflict you in the land." The Targum's word terisin—shields—suggests the remaining enemies would become an impenetrable wall of hostility closing in from every direction.