The Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan never lets a wilderness story pass without asking why the suffering. In Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 21:15, the answer is uncomfortable: when they came to the entrance of the desert, they remembered to wander after strange worship. Hagar and Ishmael, freshly expelled from Abraham's tent, turn their hearts back toward the idols of Egypt — and the water dries up.
The Aramaic draws the link tightly. Ishmael is seized with a tzaha, a burning thirst. He drinks the last drops. His flesh withers. His mother carries him. She cries out to dechaltei d'avoy, the Fear of his father — meaning the God of Abraham — and He answered her not.
This is one of the Targum's sharpest theological moments. Hagar's prayer fails in the silence of heaven because, moments earlier, she had turned toward other gods. The God of Abraham does not answer prayers directed at Him through the memory of idols.
She lays the child beneath a tree. The Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the Hebrew's devastating verb — she threw him — as if her own body could no longer hold the consequence of her choice.
The Maggidim took this as a warning. Crisis exposes the true address of our prayers. The takeaway: before you call out to heaven, be sure you have not been serving somewhere else.