The Targum Jonathan on (Deuteronomy 13) confronts one of the most dangerous problems in ancient Israelite religion: the prophet whose miracles actually work. The Hebrew text warns against following a prophet who "gives you a sign or a miracle, and the sign comes to pass." The Targum calls this person a "false prophet" and a "dreamer of a profane dream." The Hebrew is more neutral. The Targum has already rendered the verdict.
The theological logic is striking. A prophet can perform genuine miracles and still be false. The miracle is real. The message is the lie. "The Lord your God thereby trieth you," the Targum says, "to know whether you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." God allows false miracles as a test. The Targum transforms what could be a crisis of faith into a system—miracles alone prove nothing. Only the message matters.
The punishment for the false prophet is death by sword. The Targum says he "had spoken perversity against the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of the Mizraee." The crime is not merely deception. It is ingratitude—leading people away from the God who freed them from slavery.
The chapter then turns to something even more painful: betrayal by family. If "thy brother, the son of thy mother, or even the son of thy father, or thy own son or thy daughter, or thy wife who reposeth with thee, or thy friend who is beloved as thy soul" urges you toward idolatry—you must report them. The Targum adds layers of intimacy the Hebrew only sketches. "Thy wife who reposeth with thee." "Thy friend who is beloved as thy soul." The closer the relationship, the harder the duty.
The Targum adds a terrifying escalation. If an entire city goes astray, the passage identifies two categories of corrupters: "men of pride drawing back from the doctrine of the Lord" and "sages of your rabbins who have gone forth and led away the inhabitants." Corrupt scholars are worse than corrupt laypeople. The city must be destroyed completely—burned to the ground, never rebuilt, its spoil incinerated in the street.
The chapter closes with mercy: God will "show His mercy upon you, and love you, and multiply you"—but only after the cancer of idolatry has been cut out entirely.