The plague of hail in Exodus chapter 9 comes with a warning: anyone who fears God's word should bring their livestock inside. The Hebrew Bible says some of Pharaoh's servants feared the word of the Lord, and some did not (Exodus 9:20-21). It does not name them. The Targum Jonathan does.
The God-fearer who gathered his servants and flocks inside was Job. The one who ignored God's word and left his servants and animals in the field was Balaam. Two of the most famous non-Israelite figures in the Hebrew Bible—the righteous sufferer and the corrupt prophet—are placed side by side in Pharaoh's court as rival advisors. The Targum draws on a well-known rabbinic tradition that Pharaoh had three counselors: Job, Balaam, and Jethro. Jethro fled. Job remained silent when Pharaoh debated enslaving Israel, and was punished with suffering. Balaam actively encouraged the persecution.
The plague itself is described with cosmic imagery. The hail falls from "the treasures of the heavens"—suggesting that God stores destructive forces in celestial vaults, ready to deploy. And the hailstones contained fire within them: "fire darting among the hail." Ice and flame coexisted in the same stones, defying nature itself. The miracle was not just destruction. It was the suspension of physics.
When Pharaoh confesses his sin, the Targum makes his admission more specific than the Hebrew text: "I know that the Lord is a righteous God, and that I and my people have deserved every one of these plagues." This is not vague regret. It is a legal acknowledgment of justified divine punishment. And Moses agrees to pray—but pointedly tells Pharaoh, "I know that thou and thy servants release the people, they will have to be afraid before the Lord God." Moses already knows this confession is temporary. The Targum's Moses is not naive about Pharaoh's patterns.