Targum Jonathan transforms the assembly laws of (Deuteronomy 23) with details that reshape who belongs to Israel and why. A man "born of fornication" cannot enter the congregation—but the Targum adds a category the Torah never mentions: one "who hath upon him the evil mark which is set upon the unclean Gentiles." This mysterious "evil mark" appears to reference circumcision practices of non-Jewish peoples, a theological boundary marker the Targum quietly inserts.
The exclusion of Ammonites and Moabites gets a geographic expansion. Bileam bar Beor is identified as coming "from Petho Chelmaya, which is built in the land of Aram upon the Phrat"—the Euphrates. The Torah just says Pethor. The Targum locates it precisely in the Aramaic-speaking world its audience knew. And God did not merely refuse to listen to Bileam—He "turned in his mouth curses into blessings." The curses physically reversed direction inside Bileam's own mouth. That vivid image of words transforming as they are spoken does not appear in the Torah's version of this passage.
The military camp regulations gain theological weight. Soldiers must "beware of every evil thing"—but the Targum specifies three evils: "strange worship, the exposure of the shame, and the shedding of innocent blood." Why? "For the Shekinah (the Divine Presence) of the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp." God's presence literally walks through the military encampment. Impurity drives it away.
The treatment of escaped slaves gets remarkable expansion. The Torah says do not return a runaway slave. The Targum says the escaped person "shall be under the protection of My Shekinah" and instructs Israel to "teach him the law, and put him in a school." A fugitive slave must receive an education. The vow laws add specificity—fulfill vows within "one of the three festivals"—and close with a striking permission: a hired worker may eat in a neighbor's vineyard "till thou art satisfied" but cannot pocket the produce.