(2) Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite.--In Genesis 26:34, she is called "Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite," and is placed second. Here she is everywhere placed first. We do not often elsewhere find women possessed of two names, but it has not been sufficiently borne in mind that she was a Hittite, and her own name in her own language neither Adah nor Bashemath. As Adah means ornament, and Bashemath sweet-scented, both may possibly have been terms of endearment, arising from modifications of her Hittite name.

Aholibamah the daughter of Anah the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite.--She is supposed to answer to Judith the daughter of "Beeri the Hittite," in Genesis 26:34. But in Genesis 36:24-25, we find her genealogy given again, and Zibeon, the father of Anah, the father of Aholibamah, is there described as a Horite. Now, as Hivi (Hivite) and Hori (Horite) differ in Hebrew only in the length of the top of the middle letter, and as mistakes in the transcription of Biblical names are of constant occurrence, it seems certain that Aholibamah was a Horite, and therefore, entirely distinct from Judith. Judith, the first wife, apparently had no children, and hence arose the temptation to Esau to marry some one besides. Hence, too, Adah comes in her proper order, as being the first wife who had sons; and Eliphaz as the son of the first wife who had children, has the right of primogeniture. Hence, too, Aholibamah in the genealogy is always placed third. She was the fourth and last wife taken, and her children are placed after those of Bashemath. And this was a matter of far too great importance in a genealogy for there to be any mistake made in it. And now we see the reason for giving the genealogy of the Horites, and also why Esau took the Horite land for a possession. In some expedition into the country of Seir, Esau had married the daughter of one of the dukes there, and through her had acquired a right to ducal rank. Through her family, moreover, he had friendly relations with one portion at least of the Horite people. Our knowledge of the princely Hittites has of late been too largely increased for us to be able to connect a Horite race with them, and Rebekah distinctly calls Judith and Adah-Bashemath daughters of Heth. Excepting the Semites, no race in Palestine stands so high as the Hittites, and no race so low as the Horites. But their rulers were probably of a higher breed; and Esau's invasions of their country, his final settlement there, and the introduction of the genealogy of "Seir the Horite," together with Aholibamah's place as the last of Esau's wives, all are facts which strongly confirm the supposition of his having contracted a Horite marriage during Jacob's absence in Padan-aram.

The meanness of the Horites is not a deduction merely from their having dwelt in caves, for the country is so admirably adapted to this mode of living that it still exists there; but they are omitted from the table of nations in Genesis 10, and seem generally to have been a feeble aboriginal race.

Verses 2, 3. - Esau took his wives (the expression refers in this place not to the marriage, but to the removal, of his wives) of the daughters of Canaan; - i.e. who were of the daughters of Canaan (vide Genesis 26:34) - Adah - "Ornament," "Beauty" (Gesenius); the name also of one of Lamech's wives (cf. Genesis 4:19) - the daughter of Elon - "Oak" (Gesenius) - the Hittite, and Aholibamah - "Tent of the High Place" (Gesenius) - the daughter of Anah - "Answering" (Gesenius) - the daughter - i.e. the grand-daughter, though, after the LXX. and the Samaritan, some read the son, as in ver. 24 (Gesenius, Kalisch, Furst, et alii) - of Zibeon - "Colored" (Gesenius); "Wild," "Robber" (Furst) - the Hivite; and Bashemath - "Sweet-smelling" (Gesenius) - Ishmael's daughter, sister of Nebajoth - "High Place" (Gesenius). The difference between this account and that previously given (Genesis 26:34; Genesis 28:9) will appear at a glance by setting the two lists of wives in parallel columns: - 1. Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite. 1. Aholibamah, daughter of Anah, daughter of Zibeon the Hivite. 2. Bashemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite. 2. Adah, daughter of Elon the Hittite. 3. Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael, sister of Nebajoth. 3. Bashemath, Ishmael's daughter, sister of Nebajoth. The two lists agree in saying

(1) that Esau had three wives,

(2) that one of them was the daughter of Elon the Hittite,

(3) that another of them was Ishmael's daughter, the sister of Nebajoth, and

(4) that the name of one of them was Bashemath.

The discrepancy between the two is greatest in respect of the first wife, who appears with a different name and a different parentage in the two lists; while with reference to the second and the third wives, it is only the difference of name that requires to be accounted for. Now since the two lists belong to the so-called Elohistic document (Tuch, Bleak, Stahelin, Davidson, et alii), the hypothesis must be discarded "that the Hebrew text, though containing several important coincidences, evidently embodies two accounts irreconcilably different" (Kalisch) - a conclusion which can only be maintained by ascribing to the author the most absolute literary incompetence. Equally the conjecture must be set aside that the two lists refer to different persons, the second three being names of wives which Esau took on the decease of the first. The solutions that appear most entitled to acceptance, though all are more or less conjectural, proceed upon the supposition that Esau had only three wives, or at most four.

1. On the hypothesis that Esau had not more than three wives, it is only needful to presume that each of them had two names, a not unusual circumstance in Oriental countries (Rosenmüller, Havernick) - one of them, probably that contained in the present list, bestowed on the occasion of marriage; and that Anah, the father of Aholibamah, was the same person with Beeri, or the Well-Man, who received that cognomen from the incident related in ver. 24, viz., that he discovered certain hot springs while feeding his father's asses (Hengstenberg, Keil, Kurtz) - the peculiarity that in one place (Genesis 26:34) he is styled a Hittite, in another (Genesis 36:2) a Hivite, and in a third (Genesis 36:20) a Horite, being explained by the conjecture that the first was the generic term for the race, the second the specific designation of the tribe, and the third the particular name for the inhabitants of the district to which he belonged (Keil, Lange, 'Speaker s Commentary).

2. Another solution gives to Esau four wives, by supposing Judith to have died without issue (Murphy, Jacobus), or, in consequence of being childless, though still living, to have been passed over in silence in the former genealogical register (Quarry), and Aholibamah to have been the fourth partner whom Esau espoused. The Samaritan version reads Mahalath for Bashemath in the second list, which it regards as an error of transcription (W. L. Alexander in Kitto's ' Cyclopedia'); while others think that Adah has been written by inadvertence for Bashemath (Inglis)'; but such conjectures are as unnecessary as they are manifestly arbitrary.

36:1-43 Esau and his descendants. - The registers in this chapter show the faithfulness of God to his promise to Abraham. Esau is here called Edom, that name which kept up the remembrance of his selling his birth-right for a mess of pottage. Esau continued the same profane despiser of heavenly things. In outward prosperity and honour, the children of the covenant are often behind, and those that are out of the covenant get the start. We may suppose it a trial to the faith of God's Israel, to hear of the pomp and power of the kings of Edom, while they were bond-slaves in Egypt; but those that look for great things from God, must be content to wait for them; God's time is the best time. Mount Seir is called the land of their possession. Canaan was at this time only the land of promise. Seir was in the possession of the Edomites. The children of this world have their all in hand, and nothing in hope, Lu 16:25; while the children of God have their all in hope, and next to nothing in hand. But, all things considered, it is beyond compare better to have Canaan in promise, than mount Seir in possession.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 Genesis 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, Genesis 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, Genesis 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, Genesis 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, Genesis 26:34; but not only the names differ, but also the names of their fathers, and of the tribe or nation they were of.