Verse 2 is the ground or basis for Isaac’s request in verses 3-4.

Behold, I am old: Behold is used to call attention to an action in which the listener (Esau) is vitally involved. In other words, “Listen carefully” because what I am going to say affects you. Good News Translation has “You see.” Old translates the verb form of the adjective used in Gen 27.1.

I do not know the day of my death translates the Hebrew literally. While Isaac says that he does not know when he will die, he means that he thinks he may die soon. He “feels himself near death” (von Rad). We may say, for example, “I may die any day now,” “I don’t know how much longer I will live,” or “I feel that it won’t be long before I die.” Some languages express this idea idiomatically; for example, “I’m almost finished.”

It is quite likely that the words I am old … had the force of a formula introducing a declaration about inheritance. Speiser quotes a statement from documents found at Nuzi and coming from the period of the patriarchs, in which the formula “I have now grown old” leads to an oral allocation of the speaker’s property. In some languages it may be possible to use a similar formula in this context. Apart from such a formula many languages have a special term or expression for the declaration about inheritance that an old man makes in this situation; see comments on “bless” at Gen 27.4.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .