We see that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Isaac moves because of a famine and he tells the king of the land that his wife is in fact his sister. Why do they repeat this mistake? The king happens to see Isaac “fondling” Rebekah and so as a result discovers that she is his wife after all, and not his sister. As a result he commands that no one is to touch or to bring harm upon either Isaac or Rebekah. As a result of that they not only live in peace but they prosper. They prosper so much that they are seen as a threat so they are “asked” to move away.
They move away, and in the midst of this bringing us up to date we hear that after Abraham dies then those in the land had covered up his wells. This would have had a direct affect on Isaac. It is also interesting that while Abraham was exceedingly rich, we don’t read that about Isaac, until now when his crops grow 100 fold and he becomes wealthy. What happened to all of the wealth that his father had? I think the fact that we are told that all of his father’s wells were filled in tells us also that with Isaac things had started to go downhill.
We are introduced to Beer-Sheba and we see that this is where Isaac resides. We then catch a glimpse into the lives of the children post-selling of the birthright. Their eldest had married a wife or two with which they were not pleased. Parents not liking the wives that their children marry might be pretty common, but here it is just kind of tossed out there. As a result of this marriage we don’t hear that Esau’s life was miserable, but rather that Isaac and Rebekah’s lives were miserable.