Leviticus 18 lists the prohibited sexual relationships. The Targum Jonathan frames the entire chapter with a promise and a threat that go far beyond the Hebrew text.
The promise comes in verse 5. The Hebrew Bible says whoever follows God's laws "shall live by them." The Targum expands dramatically: "he shall live in them, in the life of eternity, and his portion shall be with the just." Observing these commandments does not just sustain life on earth. It earns eternal life. This is one of the clearest afterlife statements in any Targum, and it transforms the sexual prohibitions from social regulations into a gateway to immortality.
The threat opens the chapter: do not follow "the evil work of the people of the land of Egypt" or "the evil work of the people of the land of Canaan." The Hebrew says "practices." The Targum says "evil work," loading the word with moral judgment. These were not merely different customs. They were wicked acts.
The Targum adds age qualifiers throughout: "No man, either young or old," establishing that these laws apply universally regardless of age. This phrase appears repeatedly, closing any loophole that might exempt the very young or the elderly.
On the prohibition against giving children to Molech, the Targum reinterprets the act: the children are given "to lie carnally with the daughters of the Gentiles, to perform strange worship." The Hebrew is ambiguous about what "passing through fire" means. The Targum reads it as intermarriage leading to idolatry—a different interpretation than the child-sacrifice reading common elsewhere.
The chapter closes with the land itself as moral enforcer: "the land hath been defiled, and I have visited the guilt upon it, and the land delivereth itself of its inhabitants." The land vomits out the wicked. The Targum preserves this image intact—the soil of Israel has its own sense of justice.