The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 14:25 gives the Mizraee a final moment of clarity. Their chariot wheels are broken—or in the Targum's alternate reading, made rough, gouged so that they can barely turn. The drivers whip the animals forward. The wheels grind. The chariots lag behind.
And then, too late, they finally understand. "Let us flee from the people of the house of Israel; for this is the Word of the Lord who fought for them in Mizraim."
The Targum places the recognition on their own lips. The Egyptians, mid-drowning, name the Memra—the Word of the Lord—as the power behind the plagues they had endured and the catastrophe they are now entering. They had seen the plagues as ten bad harvests or ten freak accidents. At the Sea, inside the broken chariots, they finally see the plagues as a single agent: this God. His people.
The pattern is devastating. Throughout the plague narrative, Pharaoh said after each blow, "I have sinned, the Lord is righteous"—and then hardened his heart again. Now, at the bottom of the sea, there is no more opportunity for a reversal. The Egyptians confess the truth at the moment it cannot save them.
The Targum's theological point is stark. Repentance that comes only when escape is impossible is not repentance. It is the verdict speaking through the condemned.
Takeaway: the Targum teaches that truth recognized too late is still truth, but it no longer delivers.