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.
Whatsoever I command you, that shall you observe to do; ye shall not add to it nor diminish from it.
When there may arise among you a false prophet or a dreamer of a profane dream, and he give you a sign or a miracle,
and the sign or the miracle come to pass, (yet) because he spake with you, saying, Let us go after the gods of the peoples whom thou hast not known, and worship them,
you shall not hearken to the words of that lying prophet, or him who hath dreamed that dream; for the Lord your God (thereby) trieth you, to know whether you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
You shall walk after the service of the Lord your God, and Him shall you fear, and keep His commandments, hearken to His word, pray before Him, and cleave unto His fear.
And that prophet of lies, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be slain with the sword, because he had spoken perversity against the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of the Mizraee, and redeemed you from the house of the affliction of slaves to make you to go astray from the path which the Lord your God hath commanded you to walk in: so shall you bring down the doers of evil among you.
When thy brother, the son of thy mother, when 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, shall give thee evil counsel, to make thee go astray, speaking out and saying, Let us go and worship the gods of the Gentiles, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known;
or the idols of the seven nations who are near you round about, or of the rest of the nations who are far away from you, from one end of the earth to the other;
you shall not consent to them, nor hearken to him, neither shall your eye spare him or have compassion, nor shall you hide him in secret;
but killing you shall kill him; your hand shall be the first upon him to slay him, and afterwards the hand of all the people;
and you shall stone him that he die; because he sought to draw them away from the fear of the Lord thy God, who brought you out free from the land of Mizraim, from the house of the affliction of slaves.
And all Israel will hear and be afraid, and never more do according to that evil thing among you.
When, in one of your cities which the Lord your God will give you to dwell in, you hear it said
that (certain) men of pride are drawing back from the doctrine of the Lord your God, or that even sages of your rabbins have gone forth and led away the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and worship the gods of the nations which you have not known:
then search you out, and examine with witnesses, and make good inquiry; and, behold, if the thing be true and certain that this abomination hath been really done among you,
you shall smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, to destroy it utterly and whatever is therein, even its cattle, with the edge of the sword.
You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of the street, and burn the city with fire, together with the whole of the spoil, before the Lord your God; and it shall be a desolate heap for ever, never to be builded again:
that the Lord may be turned from the fierceness of His anger, and may show His mercy upon you, and love you, and multiply you, as He hath sworn to your fathers.
So be ye obedient to the Word of the Lord your God, to keep all His commandments which I command you this day, that you may do what is right before the Lord your God.
