The Song of the Sea in (Exodus 15) is one of the oldest poems in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan rewrites it with additions so bold they create entirely new theology, including a cosmic argument between the sea and the earth over who has to receive the Egyptian dead.
The Targum's most tender addition comes early. It says that "from their mothers' breasts even the children have given signs with their fingers to their fathers," pointing and saying, "This is our God, who nourished us with honey from the rock, and with oil from the stone of clay." Infants at the breast recognized God before their parents did. The Hebrew text says "this is my God and I will glorify Him." The Targum puts those words in the mouths of nursing babies.
The most dramatic addition is a dialogue that appears nowhere in Scripture. "The sea spake to the earth, Receive thy children"—meaning the Egyptian dead. But the earth refused, saying, "Receive thy murderers." Neither wanted the corpses. The earth was afraid that if it swallowed them, it would be held accountable "in the day of the great judgment in the world to come, even as the blood of Abel will be required of her." God had to swear an oath to the earth that it would not be held liable before the earth would finally open and consume them.
At the song's climax, the Targum adds messianic language. The redeemed Israelites proclaimed God as "King of kings in this world" and declared His kingdom extends "in the world to come, for ever and ever." The Song of the Sea becomes not just a victory hymn but a coronation ceremony.
Miriam the prophetess led the women in song, and the Targum says the tree at Marah that sweetened the bitter waters was the "bitter tree of Ardiphne," upon which Moses inscribed the Great Name of God before casting it into the water. At Elim, the twelve fountains corresponded to the twelve tribes, and the seventy palm trees to the seventy elders. Nothing in this Targum is accidental.