Genesis 36:3

One of the wives of Esau, the daughter of Ishmael and the mother of Reuel, Genesis 36:3-4. In the earlier narrative, Genesis 26:34 and Genesis 28:9, the names of Esau's wives differ from those given in Genesis 36:2-3. The women may have had two names, or someone may have given them another name at their marriage. It seems likely that Basemath, daughter of Ishmael, is the same person as Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael.

Later, in the genealogy of Esau, the Spirit of God says that Esau took Basemath, Ishmael's daughter, as a wife. Historians say the writer of Genesis made a mistake in mixing the names. We suggest the revised name had deliberate significance. In God's eyes there was no difference between Ishmael's daughter and the daughter of Canaan. So the record gives her a name of Canaan. She was a sorrow by name, and no less a sorrow in nature and practice, to his parents and to God.

Eldest son of Ishmael and one of the chiefs of the Ishmaelites. Isaiah 60:7 names the rams of Nebaioth, with the flocks of Kedar his brother, as serving the prosperity of Israel in the future day of blessing.

Scripture tells us in Genesis 28:6-9 how Esau copied his brother as far as appearance went, because his Canaanite wives displeased his father. But God was not in his thoughts, and his imitation fell far short. Besides his Hittite wives he took a daughter of Ishmael as wife — the child of the slave woman, cast out from Abraham's house. There was no faith, only a natural and useless effort after better ways.

He seems to have thought his parents would be happier if he added another wife, as long as she had some link to Abraham! So he took the daughter of Ishmael, the son of the slave woman. This is of course the foolish reasoning of the flesh. He knew his father had only one wife. How could a son with three wives please him?

It is a sign of the times that so little is thought of the character of a man's associations. In truth, nothing gives us our character so much. To say of Enoch, or of Noah, that "he walked with God" describes the man fully in the fewest words. If a man freely joins himself to God's enemies, can he truly want a walk like that?

At first reading, this account of Esau's descendants might seem like a stray fragment. Someone could just as well have placed it a few chapters earlier, or a few later, than where it now stands. But you cannot move a chapter or a word without spoiling the perfection of God's word. There is divine wisdom in placing it just where it is.

The Edomite interrupts the course of God's dealings. We see at once what remarkable maturity there was here. It is always so — first the natural, then the spiritual. Even then we find a rapid development of power in the family of Esau. They were all great people, to be sure — chief after chief, right to the end of the chapter. Kings reigned among them before Israel had any king at all. Growth according to God is slower, but then it is more permanent.