Tolodoth: the blessing

The central story in Toledoth is Jacob absconding  with  the blessing intended for Esau. 

How is this possible?  I must be translating the words wrong.   A  blessing, in common parlance, is a wish, a thing that is made from nothing more than intention.  Such an insubstantial thing as a  blessing cannot be stolen, it automatically adheres to the intended object.   This bracha must be something more than that.  

Perhaps the blessing  is a kind of intellectual property.  The blessing that Abraham earned, as stated in the beginning of the parsha: 

וְהִרְבֵּיתִ֤י אֶֽת־זַרְעֲךָ֙ כְּכוֹכְבֵ֣י הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וְנָתַתִּ֣י לְזַרְעֲךָ֔ אֵ֥ת כָּל־הָאֲרָצֹ֖ת הָאֵ֑ל וְהִתְבָּרֲכ֣וּ בְזַרְעֲךָ֔ כֹּ֖ל גּוֹיֵ֥י הָאָֽרֶץ׃

I will make your heirs as numerous as the stars of heaven, and assign to your heirs all these lands, so that all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your heirs—

5

עֵ֕קֶב אֲשֶׁר־שָׁמַ֥ע אַבְרָהָ֖ם בְּקֹלִ֑י וַיִּשְׁמֹר֙ מִשְׁמַרְתִּ֔י מִצְוֺתַ֖י חֻקּוֹתַ֥י וְתוֹרֹתָֽי׃

inasmuch as Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge: My commandments, My laws, and My teachings.”

This Divine  Abrahamic blessing, now passed to Isaac, along with the physical, worldly legacy of Abraham, may have that corporeal characteristic of being transferable like real property.  The immediately preceding transaction, Esau selling the primogeniture to Jacob for lentil soup, hints at the substantial nature, in this text,  of things that I would ordinarily understand to be abstract and non-commercial. 

[Had Jacob failed to purchase the legal rights to Esau's status, the blessing might have gone to Esau despite Jacob's physical presence, by the mechanism of zoche le'adam shelo befonov: Jacob would have been considered Esau's messenger for the delivery of Isaac's blessing, even in the absence of prior delegation for the task ]. 

The blessing comes to us, the descendants of Jacob, as a right to the promised land (and a promise of prominence in the world). There is a phrase in the King James version: "the meek shall inherit the earth."  Some scholars have proposed this is a misleading translation.  It would be better said: the meek shall inherit The Land.  Perhaps we have that here.  Meek Jacob acquires  entitlement to the Land ( and perhaps the earth) - through his (mother's) guile. 

Did our ancestor really  get the misplaced blessing?  We certainly got the accompanying curse - our brother, who lives by the sword has claimed his legacy... repeatedly.