The accounts of Esau’s wives

The Ark of the Covenant

On Facebook the question arose recently: why do the accounts of Esau’s wives differ so considerably?

(Genesis 26:34 RSV) When Esau was forty years old, he took to wife Judith the daughter of Be-eri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite;
(Genesis 26:35 RSV) and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.

(Genesis 28:8 RSV) So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father,
(Genesis 28:9 RSV) Esau went to Ishmael and took to wife, besides the wives he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth.

(Genesis 36:2 RSV) Esau took his wives from the Canaanites: Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, Oholibamah the daughter of Anah the son of Zibeon the Hivite,
(Genesis 36:3 RSV) and Basemath, Ishmael’s daughter, the sister of Nebaioth.

“Ishmael’s daughter, the sister of Nebaioth” allows us to suppose that Mahalath and Basemath are two different names for the same woman. By coincidence, Basemath was one name of “the daughter of Elon the Hittite”, who was also named Adah. People had more than one proper name in those days (consider Abram/Abraham, Jacob/Israel and Esau/Edom, for example), often reflecting different aspects of their character and/or personality.

“Oholibamah the daughter of Anah the son of Zibeon the Hivite”, being set parallel to “Judith the daughter of Be-eri the Hittite”, poses the greatest difficulty.

Albert Barnes proposes this solution:

Of the daughters of Kenaan. - This refers to the two following wives mentioned in this verse, and distinguishes them from the third, mentioned in the following verse, who is of the family of Ishmael. “Adah, daughter of Elon the Hittite.” On comparing the account of his two wives whom he married at forty with the present, the first, namely, Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, no longer appears either by her own name, that of her father, or that of her tribe. Hence, we presume that in the course of the past forty-seven years she has died without male issue. This presumption is favored by the circumstance that the daughter of Elon the Hittite is now advanced into the first place. If it seems undesirable to anyone to make any presumption of this kind, we have only to say that in the absence of the connecting links in a historical statement like this, we must make some supposition to show the possibility of the events related. The presumption we have made seems easier and therefore, more likely than that the names of the individual, the father and the tribe, should be all different, and the order of the two wives reversed, and yet that the same person should be intended; and hence, we have adopted it as a possible arrangement, leaving to others the preference of any other possibility that may be suggested. For after all it should be remembered that testimony only could determine what were the actual circumstances. She who was formerly called Basemath appears here with the name of Adah. At a time when proper names were still significant, the application of more than one name to the same individual was not unusual.
Oholibamah, daughter of Anah, daughter of Zibon the Hivite. - This may have been the fourth wife of Esau in the order of time, though she is here classed with the daughter of Elon, because she was of the daughters of Kenaan. “Daughter of Zibon” means his granddaughter, by the mother’s side. “The Hivite” Gen_10:17. Zibon is thus distinguished from the Horite of the same name Gen_36:20. The Hivite race we have already met with at Shekem Gen_34:2. They also held four cities a short way north of Jerusalem, of which Gihon was the chief Jos_9:3, Jos_9:7,Jos_9:17. It was easy, therefore, for Anah the Horite to marry the daughter of Zibon the Hivite. “Basemath,” previously called Mahalath.

Adam Clarke proposes this:

Gen 36:2
His wives - It appears that Esau’s wives went by very different names. Aholibamah is named Judith, Gen_26:34; Adah is called Bashemath in the same place; and she who is here called Bashemath is called Mahalath, Gen_28:9. These are variations which cannot be easily accounted for; and they are not of sufficient importance to engross much time. It is well known that the same persons in Scripture are often called by different names.
Anah the daughter of Zibeon - But this same Anah is said to be the son of Zibeon, Gen_36:24, though in this and Gen_36:14 he is said to be the daughter of Zibeon. But the Samaritan, the Septuagint, (and the Syriac, in Gen_36:2), read son instead of daughter, which Houbigant and Kennicott contend to be the true reading. Others say that daughter should be referred to Aholibamah, who was the daughter of Anah, and granddaughter of Zibeon. I should rather prefer the reading of the Samaritan, Septuagint, and Syriac, and read, both here and in Gen_36:14, “Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah the son of Zibeon,” and then the whole will agree with Gen_36:24.

John Gill add this to the discussion:

Gen 36:2 And Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan,…. Of the Canaanites, the posterity of cursed Canaan, most of them were of them, though not all, the two following were, and so those, if different from them in Gen_26:34, one of his wives was of the family of Ishmael, as after related:

Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite; according to Jarchi and Aben Ezra, this is the same with Bashemath, Gen_26:34; and that she had two names:

and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite; the daughter of the one, and the granddaughter of the other, it being usual in Scripture to call grandchildren children, for Zibeon and Anah were father and son, Gen_36:24; and the Samaritan, Septuagint, and Syriac versions read here, “the daughter of Anah the son of Zibeon”: there are an Anah and a Zibeon who were brethren, Gen_36:20; wherefore Aben Ezra supposes that these two brothers, or the father and son, lay with the same woman, and it could not be known whose child it was that was born of her, and therefore this was called the daughter of them both. Jarchi supposes this wife of Esau to be the same with Judith, Gen_26:34; but not only the names differ, but also the names of their fathers, and of the tribe or nation they were of.

And finally, we have Keil & Delitzsch:

Gen 36:1-8
Esau’s Wives and Children. His Settlement in the Mountains of Seir. - In the heading (Gen_36:1) the surname Edom is added to the name Esau, which he received at his birth, because the former became the national designation of his descendants. – Gen_36:2, Gen_36:3. The names of Esau’s three wives differ from those given in the previous accounts (Gen_26:34 and Gen_28:9), and in one instance the father’s name as well. The daughter of Elon the Hittite is called Adah (the ornament), and in Gen_26:34 Basmath (the fragrant); the second is called Aholibamah (probably tent-height), the daughter of Anah, daughter, i.e., grand-daughter of Zibeon the Hivite, and in Gen_26:34, Jehudith (the praised or praiseworthy), daughter of Beeri the Hittite; the third, the daughter of Ishmael, is called Basmath here and Mahalath in Gen_28:9. This difference arose from the fact, that Moses availed himself of genealogical documents for Esau’s family and tribe, and inserted them without alteration. It presents no irreconcilable discrepancy, therefore, but may be explained from the ancient custom in the East, of giving surnames, as the Arabs frequently do still, founded upon some important or memorable event in a man’s life, which gradually superseded the other name (e.g., the name Edom, as explained in Gen_25:30); whilst as a rule the women received new names when they were married (cf. Chardin, Hengstenberg, Dissertations, vol. ii. p. 223-6). The different names given for the father of Aholibamah or Judith, Hengstenberg explains by referring to the statement in Gen_36:24, that Anah, the son of Zibeon, while watching the asses of his father in the desert, discovered the warm springs (of Calirrhoe), on which he founds the acute conjecture, that from this discovery Anah received the surname Beeri, i.e., spring-man, which so threw his original name into the shade, as to be the only name given in the genealogical table. There is no force in the objection, that according to Gen_36:25 Aholibamah was not a daughter of the discoverer of the springs, but of his uncle of the same name. For where is it stated that the Aholibamah mentioned in Gen_36:25 was Esau’s wife? And is it a thing unheard of that aunt and niece should have the same name? If Zibeon gave his second son the name of his brother Anah (cf. Gen_36:24 and Gen_36:20), why could not his son Anah have named his daughter after his cousin, the daughter of his father’s brother? The reception of Aholibamah into the list of the Seirite princes is no proof that she was Esau’s wife, but may be much more naturally supposed to have arisen from the same (unknown) circumstance as that which caused one of the seats of the Edomitish Alluphim to be called by her name (Gen_36:41). – Lastly, the remaining diversity, viz., that Anah is called a Hivite in Gen_36:2 and a Hittite in Gen_26:34, is not to be explained by the conjecture, that for Hivite we should read Horite, according to Gen_36:20, but by the simple assumption that Hittite is used in Gen_26:34 sensu latiori for Canaanite, according to the analogy of Jos_1:4; 1Ki_10:29; 2Ki_7:6; just as the two Hittite wives of Esau are called daughters of Canaan in Gen_28:8. For the historical account, the general name Hittite sufficed; but the genealogical list required the special name of the particular branch of the Canaanitish tribes, viz., the Hivites. In just as simple a manner may the introduction of the Hivite Zibeon among the Horites of Seir (Gen_36:20 and Gen_36:24) be explained, viz., on the supposition that the removed to the mountains of Seir, and there became a Horite, i.e., a troglodyte, or dweller in a cave. – The names of Esau’s sons occur again in 1Ch_1:35. The statement in Gen_36:6, Gen_36:7, that Esau went with his family and possessions, which he had acquired in Canaan, into the land of Seir, from before his brother Jacob, does not imply (in contradiction to Gen_32:4; Gen_33:14-16) that he did not leave the land of Canaan till after Jacob’s return. The words may be understood without difficulty as meaning, that after founding a house of his own, when his family and flocks increased, Esau sought a home in Seir, because he knew that Jacob, as the heir, would enter upon the family possessions, but without waiting till he returned and actually took possession. In the clause “went into the country” (Gen_36:6), the name Seir or Edom (cf. Gen_36:16) must have dropt out, as the words “into the country” convey no sense when standing by themselves.

Here’s hoping that these excerpts from e-Sword add to no one’s confusion!

Blessings in Messiah (ברכות במשיח),
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)