“Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.”
So he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had. The third marriage — to Ishmael's daughter — is Esau's attempt to correct his Canaanite wife problem by adding a wife from the Abrahamic family. The addition is the problem: he does not leave the Canaanite wives; he adds. The partial correction that does not address the root problem is the characteristic form of Esau's religious life. The application: adding the right thing without removing the wrong thing is not repentance — it is religious accumulation that misses the point.
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