The blessing Isaac gives Esau, as the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records it, is a warning and a prophecy woven together. "Upon thy sword shalt thou depend, entering at every place: yet thou shalt be supple and credulous, and be in subjection to thy brother; but it will be that when his sons become evil, and fall from keeping the commandments of the law, thou shalt break his yoke of servitude from off thy neck" (Genesis 27:40).
Esau's liberation depends on one specific condition: that Jacob's sons stop keeping the Torah.
A mirror prophecy
This is one of the most haunting verses in the whole Targum tradition. The rabbis read it as the architectural principle of Jewish history. When Israel is faithful to the commandments, the children of Esau — in later rabbinic shorthand, the empire of Rome and its successors — cannot rise over them. When Israel falls from the Torah, Esau's yoke swings back on Jewish necks.
The relationship is not arbitrary. It is covenantal logic. The Kol kol Yaakov — the voice of Jacob — that Isaac heard in the earlier verse (Genesis 27:22) is the voice of Torah. When that voice falls silent, the hands of Esau find room to work. Pseudo-Jonathan is spelling out the same principle the rabbis would later articulate in Bereshit Rabbah 65:20.
The takeaway
Esau's blessing is not a gift. It is a conditional inheritance. The Targum is teaching Jews reading across the generations that their political fate is tied to their spiritual life. Pseudo-Jonathan's ancient Aramaic audience knew exile well. They read this verse and understood: the yoke is never permanent, and neither is the freedom. Both depend on the voice.
The simple takeaway: stay in the beit midrash, and Esau has no yoke to swing.