Characters in Genesis seem to live well beyond a hundred years. Ishmael dies when he is 137. Esau and Jacob are both equal, both firstborn, but Esau is just slightly older, which makes him the bigger nation, and receives the greatest inheritance and is blessed by God to have his younger brother's nation serve him. but Esau sells his birthright for food, as he doesn't care about it, in the face of starvation, his birthright seems trivial in comparison. Also, if Esau were to die, then the birthright goes to Jacob, so instead of letting Esau die, Jacob offers a deal to Esau, a very one sided deal.
I love how the first line in chapter 26 begins with saying that a famine occurs, and then bothers to to clarify that this is a different famine! So it wasn't OK to be detailed about how Isaac ends up on the pyre when Abraham is told to sacrifice him, but its dreadfully important to say that this famine is different, even though we know its a different time period. In chapter 26 Isaac makes the same mistakes his father made, he told everyone that his wife was his sister, but no one took her as a wife so no one was punished. He was actually guaranteed safety from Abimelek.
Isaac could only gift one blessing, why couldn't he give two, and recant the first? Is there a limit that God has imposed, or is it self imposed by some sort of rule he created? Instead he didn't give Esau a blessing at all, instead Esau will serve Jacob, thanks to Isaac's wife. She exploited the gullibility of her husband to garner a blessing for Jacob. Why Jacob? She doesn't even care that she's betraying Esau and the trust between husband and wife? Of course, Jacob goes along with it, he didn't want to be subservant to his older brother, but does he realize that what he does is no better than what Esau must now endure? Then she ask the question "why should I lose both of you in one day?" I have an answer to that, because you're the arbiter of discord and vengeance by foisting betrayal upon your own household! Then she says how much he hates Hittite women, and then it becomes clear why she didn't want Esau to receive the blessing, because his descendants will be Hittite.
Jacob knows he wronged Esau and when he hears of Esau's return to him with 400 men he realizes that his doom is near. He knows what he did was wrong. He knows that his brother has right to be angry. But when Esau appears Jacob is surprised to learn that Esau had forgiven him. Jacob knew so little about his brother, had no idea what kind of man he became. Isaac's blessing, in the end, was hollow.
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