The Exodus closes the loop that began with Abraham. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the full covenantal claim: I will bring you into the land which I covenanted by My Word to give unto Abraham, to Izhak, and to Jakob; and I will give it to you for an inheritance. I Am the Lord.
Notice the Targum's theological fingerprint. The land was covenanted by My Word — be-memri, through the Memra. The Aramaic paraphrase consistently attributes divine action to the Memra, the active Word of God. The land-promise is not a vague divine wish; it is a Memra-grounded legal commitment.
The Chain of Three Patriarchs, Unbroken
The verse names all three patriarchs — Abraham, Isaac, Jakob — because the land-promise was made to each one in turn. Abraham received it at the oak of Mamre (Genesis 13:15). Isaac received it in Gerar (Genesis 26:3). Jacob received it at Bethel (Genesis 28:13). Three separate encounters, one continuous promise.
The sages of the Targumic tradition read this enumeration as proof that the covenant is not a single-generation arrangement. It is a chain — and chains only break if a link is severed. None of the three links broke. Therefore the promise still holds, four hundred years later, even to slaves who have never seen the land their ancestors walked.
The phrase for an inheritance — morasha — is legally precise. An inheritance is transferable by birth, not earned by merit. Israel will receive the land not because they deserve it but because they descend from those to whom it was promised.
The takeaway: the Jewish imagination insists that the Exodus is not a new beginning but a kept promise. God does not improvise redemption. He executes commitments made generations earlier, through the Memra, to fathers who never lived to see their descendants freed. The land of Israel is the shape of that promise, materialized.