Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

It was clear from Isaac's instruction to Jacob that he wanted Jacob to marry a woman from among those who were faithful to the one true God who had originally revealed Himself to Abraham.

Esau therefore married a Canaanite woman precisely because he knew that it would displease Isaac and Rebekah, and to "get back" at them for the favoritism that they had shown his twin brother Jacob (which included deceit and trickery), despite the fact of Esau having been the elder of the twins.

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Jack Gutknecht ABC/DTS graduate, guitar music ministry Baptist church

I hold to a different view, HARAGAKIZA Jean Baptiste. (Good question, by the way).

Taking a wife from the family of his uncle Ishmael, Esau maybe thought that this would qualify him to receive some kind of blessing from God. -- Warren Wiersbe 

"This wife of Esau is apparently called Basemath in the list of Esau’s wives in Gn 36:2-3. Both here and in Gn 36:3 the wife is identified as the daughter of Ishmael and the sister of Nebaioth."
-- Faithlife Study Bible 

Result: Both Wiersbe and Jamieson believe this: "But he only made bad worse, and though he did not marry a 'wife of the daughters of Canaan,' he married into a family which God had rejected. It showed a partial reformation, but no repentance, for he gave no proof of abating his vindictive purposes against his brother, nor cherishing that pious spirit that would have gratified his father—he was like Micah (see Jdg 17:13)." Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 1 (Oak Harbor, WA: Lost only addedgos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 31.

Wiersbe puts it this way: "It only added to the irritation in the home."

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