The Torah's Hebrew tells the Israelite women to ask their Egyptian neighbors for silver, gold, and clothing before the Exodus. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds something unforgettable: the plundered jewelry is not for adult adornment. You shall set them as crowns upon your sons and your daughters.
The image is tender and defiant at once. The same gold that had been forged into Egyptian idols, the same silver that had bought the bricks the slaves were forced to make — now becomes a crown on the head of a Hebrew child. The Targum turns looted wealth into royalty.
Emptying Egypt, Not Stealing From It
The Aramaic closes with the phrase make the Mizraee empty. The sages are careful on this point: this is not theft. It is back wages. Egypt had enslaved Israel for generations (Exodus 12:40); the silver and gold are lo tachmod in reverse — the dignity owed to a people whose labor had built the storehouses of Pithom and Raamses.
The Targum's detail about neighbors and those next to the wall of her house emphasizes proximity. These are women who had lived side by side, borrowed flour, watched each other's children. The Exodus reshuffles that relationship overnight.
The takeaway: redemption is material, not only spiritual. The Jewish imagination refuses to let freedom be abstract. It must arrive with crowns on children's heads and the weight of back wages in a freed people's hands.