Verse 14 is the hardest word in this chapter, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not round its edges. The uncircumcised male — unless he have someone to circumcise him — shall be cut off from his people. He hath, the Targum says, made My covenant to pass away.

Two phrases do the work. The first — unless he have someone to circumcise him — echoes the accommodation for the orphan from verse 10 (Genesis 17:10). The Torah, through the Targum, keeps insisting that failure of access is not the same as refusal. A Jewish boy who cannot perform the mitzvah because no one is there to perform it for him is not counted as having broken the covenant. The community has an obligation to find him.

The second phrase — he hath made My covenant to pass away — is the indictment against genuine refusal. The verb is active. The uncircumcised Jew who could have been brought into the sign, and whose elders could have brought him, and who was simply allowed to grow past childhood outside the covenant, has not merely missed a ritual. He has undone something that should still have been standing.

The Maggid hears both the mercy and the warning. Missing the mitzvah by circumstance: forgivable, fixable, still inside the family. Discarding the mitzvah by neglect: you are the one who walked out of the circle (Genesis 17:14). Judaism is generous about accident and severe about indifference. The covenant cannot be voided by fate. Only by choice.