Short answer: Genesis 26:34–35 names Esau's wives at that point as Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite. Esau took them when he was forty years old, and the text says these marriages grieved Isaac and Rebekah. The passage does not mention the later wife named in Genesis 36, so the fullest answer reads that chapter alongside this one.
A family grief at the end of a peaceful chapter
Genesis 26 closes on a quiet note. Isaac's servants finish a well and report that they have found water, and the place is named Beersheba. After the disputes over wells and the renewed word from God, the chapter settles into peace. Then verses 34–35 drop in like a stone. The shape is plain and report-like: a date, two wives named with their fathers and their people, and one sentence of outcome. No speech from God, no comment from a narrator beyond the grief. The placement matters. This short note sits between the covenant peace at Beersheba and the scene in chapter 27 where Isaac, old and dim-eyed, calls for Esau to bless him.
The reader already knows what this family carries. Genesis 25 told of Esau selling his birthright for a meal, and of Rebekah being told that the older would serve the younger. So the report that Esau, at forty, married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite lands in a family already strained. The contrast is deliberate. Abraham had gone to great lengths to find a wife for Isaac from his own kindred rather than from the Canaanites. These marriages run the other way, and the text records the result without softening it: they grieved Isaac's and Rebekah's spirits.
Notice what the passage does and does not say. It reports grief; it gives no command, no ruling on marriage in general, and no instruction about how to treat these two women. The text is description, not a charter for contempt toward a spouse or a child. What it does is set the stage. Isaac's dim eyes and his words about not knowing the day of his death open chapter 27, and Rebekah's grief over these wives will feed directly into her scheme to secure the blessing for Jacob. The grief here is real, and it shapes what comes next, but it is narrated as family pain, not as permission to coerce anyone.
Two wives, two fathers, and a grief named plainly
The wording here is almost like a record in a family ledger. Esau is forty years old, and the text says he took as wife Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite. Notice how each woman is identified: by her father's name and by her people. Beeri and Elon are named, and both households are labeled Hittite. That label is the point. In Genesis, the Hittites belong to the peoples of the land, not to the family through whom the promise runs. The narrator does not pause to comment or explain. He simply sets the fact down, the way a careful record keeper notes a marriage, and lets the reader feel the weight of it.
The last sentence is where the passage turns from record to ache: they grieved Isaac's and Rebekah's spirits. The verb is quiet. It does not say Esau hated his parents or that they disowned him, and it does not say the wives were wicked. It says the marriages grieved both parents, and it names both of them, Isaac and Rebekah together. The text also refuses to tell us why the grief arose. Was it idolatry in the household, the loss of a covenant partnership, or the daily friction of living with people who did not share the family's faith? The passage leaves the reason unstated and records only the sorrow.
That restraint matters for how we read this. Scripture reports the grief of Isaac and Rebekah without turning it into a rule that justifies contempt toward a spouse or a child, and it gives no warrant for coercion in the home. What it does show is that choices about marriage carry weight beyond the two people making them, and that a household's shared faith is not a small thing. The passage describes a sorrow; it does not prescribe how to treat Judith or Basemath. Any application must stay inside that frame: honest grief is real, and so is the dignity of the women the text names only by their fathers.
Esau's wives and the grief they brought
Genesis 26 closes on a note of settled peace. Isaac has dug wells in the land, received a renewed word from God, and made a treaty at Beersheba; the same day his servants report water, and he names the place Shibah. Then verse 34 drops a stone into that still water. At forty years old Esau takes two wives, Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. The text names them plainly and gives no commentary on their character. It simply records who they were and where they came from, and lets the next verse say what it cost.
The result is stated without softening: these marriages grieved Isaac's and Rebekah's spirits (26:35). The reader has been prepared for this. Genesis 25 told of Esau selling his birthright for a meal and of Rebekah being told the older would serve the younger. Abraham had gone to great lengths to find a wife for Isaac from his own kindred rather than from the Canaanites, and these Hittite daughters stand in sharp contrast to that care. The grief is real, but the passage reports it; it does not issue a rule about whom anyone may marry.
That grief carries straight into chapter 27. Isaac is old, his eyes dim, and he does not know the day of his death, so he calls Esau to receive the blessing. Rebekah's distress over these wives becomes part of the pressure behind the scheme that follows. The passage answers the question of Esau's wife by naming two women and by showing the sorrow their marriages brought. It does not mention the later wife named in Genesis 36, so the fullest answer requires reading that chapter alongside this one.
Where readers disagree about esau's wives
The text is spare. It gives ages and names: Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite, taken when Esau was forty. Then one sentence of consequence: they grieved Isaac's and Rebekah's spirits (26:34–35). Careful readers notice what is missing. The passage does not say why the grief was so sharp beyond identifying the women as Hittite, and it does not describe Hittite religion or household practice. It reports sorrow without diagnosing it. That restraint matters when the passage is used in conversations about marriage, since the text gives no rule here that would justify contempt toward a spouse or pressure on a child.
The harder question is names. Genesis 36 lists Esau's wives as Adah, Oholibamah, and Basemath, and readers try to fit that list with the two women named here. Some take the later Basemath as the same woman under another designation, perhaps a second name or a family label. Others read the later Basemath as a different wife, so Esau took further wives after this point. Still others conclude the text preserves overlapping traditions that were never flattened into one list. The passage itself does not resolve this, and honesty means saying so rather than forcing a harmony the text does not supply.
A third disagreement concerns the grief. Some read it as evidence of Esau's standing before God, a verdict on his choices. But the text only reports what his parents felt; it pronounces nothing about his final state, and later chapters show Esau's line treated with real complexity. What stays central is narrower and clear: Esau married outside the covenant family, the unions wounded Isaac and Rebekah, and the narrator records both facts without comment. That leaves room for pastoral care. A family's sorrow over a child's choices is real, but sorrow is not a license for contempt, and the passage never commands parents to coerce.
Esau's marriages and the grief of a covenant home
Genesis 26:34–35 reports a small, sad domestic scene. Esau is forty, the age of full adulthood, and he takes two wives, Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite. The text does not describe these women as wicked; it names their fathers and their people. What it records is the effect on Isaac and Rebekah: the marriages grieved their spirits. The narrator has just finished the account of the well at Beersheba and the oath between Isaac and Abimelech. Then, without transition, he sets a happy ending beside a family sorrow, as if to say that covenant households hold both at once.
The grief is specific. Esau marries outside the line through which the promise is being carried, and the parents who received that promise feel it. Yet the passage reports their sorrow; it does not give them a command to despise these women, disown their son, or force anyone's hand. Readers who carry the pain of a divided family, or who have been the outsider in someone's disapproval, should notice that the text is restrained. It tells us what Isaac and Rebekah felt, not what they were permitted to do. The Bible's concern for marriage within the faith is real, but this verse is a record of grief, not a license for contempt or coercion.
That concern runs forward to the church, and so does the warning. Esau's earlier trade of his birthright for a meal becomes, in Hebrews, an example of someone who treated a sacred inheritance as ordinary. But the gospel does not leave the story at rejection. The promise passes to Jacob, whose own failures are recorded at length, and it reaches its goal in Christ, in whom those outside are brought near. The family of God is formed by grace, not by ancestry. Esau's marriages explain a family's sorrow; the cross answers it, and it answers for insiders and outsiders alike.
What faithful response looks like when a family grieves
Genesis 26:34–35 ends the chapter on a flat, sad note. After the well and the oath at Beersheba, the text turns to Esau at forty and names the two Hittite women he married. Then comes the verdict: they grieved Isaac's and Rebekah's spirits. Notice that the passage does not say God struck the family or that the marriages were forbidden by an explicit command here. It reports a real sorrow felt by real parents. That restraint matters. The text gives us a warning about the weight of close bonds, not a rule that lets anyone despise a spouse or a child.
Read honestly, this is a passage for conversation more than for verdicts. Parents and children can talk about whom they marry and why, asking what a bond will do to faith, to worship, to the ordinary loyalties of a household. Believers can examine whether their closest relationships help or hinder their love for God. And where someone has brought needless sorrow to people who love them, repentance is the right response, not defensiveness. Yet the same chapter shows Isaac and Rebekah's household full of its own failures, so this text never justifies contempt or coercion toward anyone.
Grace is the ground of all this. The story that follows shows Jacob deceiving his blind father, and God still carries his promise through that tangled family. Esau's grief and Jacob's deceit are both real, and God is patient with both. The passage promises no ease in family life, only the call to faithfulness and the comfort of mercy in Christ. Where we have grieved those who love us, we confess it and ask God to make our closest bonds serve him, trusting his patience with families in conflict.
Biblical fidelity check
Genesis 26:34–35 names Esau's wives plainly: at forty he took Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite, and these unions grieved Isaac and Rebekah. Read carefully, the verses are report, not command. They tell who, how old, and whose daughter, then state the parents' sorrow without explaining its cause. The risk is filling that silence with guesses about Hittite religion or Esau's heart, and treating a narrative notice as a ruling on his final standing before God.
The real disagreement concerns how these names fit Genesis 36, which lists Esau's wives as Adah, Oholibamah, and Basemath. Some take the later Basemath as the same woman renamed, or as another wife taken afterward; others think the text preserves overlapping traditions. Genesis does not settle it. What stays central is that Esau married outside the covenant family and his parents were wounded by it. The passage reports grief, not a verdict on Esau's salvation, so readers should hold the tension rather than resolve it.
Where Genesis 26:34-35 connects to the rest of Scripture
Trace Esau's family further in Genesis 36: Esau's Generations and Edom's Chiefs where his wives are listed again, and compare the covenant concerns in Jacob and Esau Reconcile in Genesis 33. For the wider story of Isaac's household, read Genesis 10: Nations and Generations After the Flood, and see how the promise line continues in Genesis 11: Babel, Shem, and Terah.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Esau's wife in the Bible?
Genesis 26:34–35 names two wives: Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. The text places the marriages when Esau was forty years old. Genesis 36 later adds another name, so the Bible gives more than one wife for Esau. Reading the chapters together gives the complete list rather than treating either passage alone as the whole answer.
Why did Esau's marriages grieve Isaac and Rebekah?
Genesis 26:35 says these marriages grieved Isaac's and Rebekah's spirits, and the surrounding chapters show why. Esau chose women from the Hittites, the peoples of the land, while the family line carried the promise and Isaac had been warned against taking a wife from among them. The grief was real and named, yet the text reports it without issuing a rule that justifies contempt or coercion toward a spouse or a child. It describes a family's sorrow, not a license for cruelty.
Are the wives of Esau in Genesis 26 the same as those in Genesis 36?
They are not simply the same list; Genesis 26 names Judith and Basemath, while Genesis 36 gives a different set of names. The two passages are best read side by side rather than forced into one flat list. What stays central is that Esau married outside the family's covenant line and that this brought grief to his parents. The differences in names are a genuine puzzle readers should acknowledge honestly.
