Leviticus 26 contains the blessings and curses—God's promise of abundance for obedience and a cascading nightmare for rebellion. The Targum Jonathan adds a breathtaking historical prophecy that maps Israel's suffering onto four world empires.
The blessings come first: rain in its season, harvests so large "the threshing shall reach to the vintage," and peace so deep that "the unsheather of the sword shall not pass through your land." The Targum adds that God will "set the Shekinah (the Divine Presence) of My Glory among you"—a phrase absent from the Hebrew that makes God's presence physical, tangible, dwelling in the camp.
Then the curses. Seven plagues for seven transgressions—the Targum counts them explicitly each time. Famine will come so severe "ten women may bake your bread in one oven." Parents will eat their children's flesh, and the Targum inserts a voice: "Moses the prophet hath said, How heavy will have been the guilt, and how bitter those sins, that caused our fathers to eat the flesh of their sons."
But the most stunning addition comes near the end. The Hebrew Bible says God will not destroy Israel completely. The Targum names the empires: "I will not spurn them away in the kingdom of Babel; nor shall My Word abhor them in the kingdom of Media, to destroy them in the kingdom of Greece, or to abolish My covenant with them in the kingdom of Edom; for I am the Lord in the days of Gog."
Babylon, Media, Greece, Rome (called "Edom" in rabbinic code)—and finally the messianic era of Gog. The Targum reads the entire sweep of Jewish exile into a single verse, from the destruction of the First Temple through the Roman exile and into the future redemption. This is prophecy embedded in translation.
The chapter concludes with God remembering the covenants with Jacob at Bethel, Isaac at Mount Moriah, and Abraham "between the divided portions"—each covenant linked to a specific sacred site.