Isaac's answer to his weeping elder son is one of the saddest sentences in the Torah. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves its resignation with a quiet Aramaic cadence. "Behold, I have appointed him a ruler over thee, and all his brethren have I made to be his servants, and with provision and wine have I sustained him: and now go, leave me; for what can I do for thee, my son?" (Genesis 27:37).
The blessing is not a check Isaac can write a second time. It is a door that has already closed.
The irrevocable word
This is one of the deepest principles of Jewish speech ethics. Words, once spoken with true intention, do not return empty. The Torah later commands: motza s'fatecha tishmor — what goes out of your lips, you must keep (Deuteronomy 23:24). Isaac, the Targum suggests, is living that commandment centuries before it is codified. The blessing he spoke over Jacob is now part of the fabric of reality. Isaac himself cannot unmake it.
Notice the specific ingredients he names: provision and wine. The wine, as Pseudo-Jonathan told us earlier (Genesis 27:25), was the hidden wine of creation, poured by an angel. Isaac is acknowledging that Heaven itself participated. He did not do this alone, and he cannot undo it alone.
What can I do for you, my son?
The question is not rhetorical. It is agonized. Isaac loves Esau. The Torah has told us so repeatedly. And now, confronted with a son sobbing in his tent, the patriarch has to say the words every parent eventually says: I have done what I could. I cannot do more.
The takeaway: blessings cost. The one given to Jacob took something from Esau's cup. Pseudo-Jonathan does not pretend otherwise. Every word we speak over our children reshapes the world — and not always evenly.