The Book of Exodus opens with a list of names and a king who "knew not Joseph." Targum Jonathan transforms this into something far more vivid—adding a prophetic dream, naming Pharaoh's magicians, and revealing the true identities of the Hebrew midwives.
The new Pharaoh is described as one who "took no knowledge of Joseph, and walked not in his laws." This is not mere forgetfulness. The Targum implies Joseph had established laws during his time as viceroy—policies and ordinances that the new king deliberately abandoned. The oppression was a conscious reversal of everything Joseph had built.
Pharaoh's fear of the Israelites is more specific in the Targum. He warns his people: "Let us take counsel against them in these matters, to diminish them that they multiply not, so as that, should war be arrayed against us, they be not added to our adversaries, and destroy us that not one of us be left." The phrase "not one of us be left" is absent from the Torah—the Targum makes Pharaoh's paranoia total, existential.
The treasure cities get specific names. The Torah calls them Pithom and Raamses. The Targum identifies them as Tanis and Pilusin (Pelusium), real Egyptian cities that ancient readers could locate on a map.
Then comes the Targum's most dramatic addition—an entire scene the Torah never mentions. Pharaoh had a dream. "He, being asleep, saw in his dream, and behold, all the land of Egypt was placed in one scale of a balance, and a lamb, the young of a sheep, was in the other scale; and the scale with the lamb in it overweighed." All of Egypt, the mightiest civilization on earth, outweighed by a single lamb. Pharaoh summoned his magicians, and the Targum names them: Jannis and Jambres, the chief sorcerers. They interpreted the dream immediately: "A certain child is about to be born in the congregation of Israel, by whose hand will be destruction to all the land of Egypt."
This dream is what triggers the decree against the Hebrew babies. It was not generic xenophobia—it was a targeted response to a specific prophecy about a specific child. Moses was being hunted before he was born.
The midwives are identified by their real names. Shifra "is Jochebed"—Moses' own mother. Puah "is Miriam her daughter"—Moses' sister. The two women Pharaoh ordered to kill Hebrew boys were the mother and sister of the very child he was trying to destroy.
When Pharaoh confronts them for disobeying, their answer in the Targum is bolder than the Torah's version. The Hebrew women, they say, "are sturdy and wise-minded. Before the midwife cometh to them they lift up their eyes in prayer, supplicating mercy before their Father who is in heaven, who heareth the voice of their prayer, and at once they are heard, and bring forth, and are delivered in peace." They credited God directly to Pharaoh's face.
Their reward was equally specific. The Targum says they "obtained for themselves a good name unto the ages, and the Word of the Lord built for them a royal house, even the house of the high priesthood." Jochebed and Miriam—a mother and daughter who defied a king—became the ancestresses of Israel's priestly dynasty.