‘And Isaac his father said to him, “Who are you?” And he said, “I am your son, your firstborn Esau.”
“Who are you?” Isaac's mind is frozen with shock. He cannot believe what he is hearing. His previous mild suspicions now come back with full force.
Esau, completely unsuspicious makes the reply that he knows his father will expect. He is the firstborn, he is Esau. This gives away the fact that he knows that he is about to receive the firstborn's blessing, that he knows he is seeking to take something of what he had sold to Jacob. He is conscious that he is about to receive one of the rights of the firstborn, that birthright that he has sold. We do not know how far the two would be seen as officially interconnecting, but we cannot doubt that they do. It may indeed be that Esau's view is very different from Jacob's. That what he had meant by the contract was far different from what Jacob had intended. For he had probably dismissed what had happened as some peculiarity of Jacob's.