Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:25) gives a promise that ties worship to health: you shall do service before the Lord our God and He will bless the provision of thy food and thy drinks, and remove the bitter plague from among thee.
The Blessing Is on the Food Before You Eat
Notice the Torah does not promise more food — it promises blessed food. There is a difference between abundance and sustaining nourishment. A full table can still leave you hungry. A blessed morsel can satisfy a multitude. The Torah here is speaking about the second kind of plenty.
The blessing touches the provision of thy food and thy drinks — not only what you grow, but what reaches your mouth. This is the Torah's vision of the covenant reaching into the smallest detail: the water in your cup, the grain in your bowl.
The Bitter Plague Removed
The second promise is the lifting of the bitter plague. The Targum uses sharp language — not merely disease, but something sour and corrosive. The word suggests the slow, bitter illness that eats away at a household from inside.
Divine service, the verse says, pushes this back. A people that prays together has an immune system the medical world cannot measure. Not magic — covenant. The Torah is not promising miraculous exemption from all sickness but a settled presence of divine care that turns even hardship into something the community can bear.
The Takeaway
The Torah links worship to wellbeing. Not as superstition — as architecture. A life oriented to God has room in it for blessing that a life oriented elsewhere cannot accommodate.