#44 - Who was Bashemath's father?

Response by Dave Marr

The skeptic asks: Who was Bashemath's father?

She was the daughter of Elon the Hittite.
Gen:26:34 And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite."

She was the daughter of Ishmael.
Gen.36:2-3: "Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan; Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and ... Bashemath Ishmael's daughter."

Easton's Bible Dictionary
Bash’emath means; fragrant, pleasing, daughter of Ishmael, the last married of the three wives of Esau. (Genesis 26:34; 36:3,4,13) (B.C. after 1797.) In (Genesis 28:9) she is called Mahalath.

Elon - the Hittite
Esau: At the age of forty years, to the great grief of his parents, he married (Genesis 26:34,35) two Canaanitish maidens, Judith, the daughter of Beeri,and Bashemath, the daughter of Elon. When Jacob was sent away to Padan-aram, Esau tried to conciliate his parents (Genesis 28:8,9) by marrying his cousin Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael.

The name Bashemath (correctly Basemath) probably comes from the Semitic word-stem b-s-m, meaning “fragrant” (for example, besem means “balsam” in Hebrew). When you add the Hebrew feminine ending –ath, you get Basemath, “fragrant woman.” The possibility exists that Mahalath (daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebajoth) and Adah (daughter of Elon the Hittite) were both given the nickname “fragrant” (Douglas 1982: 124). In other words, the Bashemath, daughter of Elon, in Gen. 26:34 is the same as the Adah, daughter of Elon, in Gen. 36:2, while the Bashemath, daughter of Ishmael, in Gen. 36:3 is the same as Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael, in Gen. 28:9.

Esau’s Wives by Stephen Caesar
Critics frequently point to what they believe is a contradiction in the Book of Genesis. According to Gen. 26:34 and 28:9, Esau’s wives were as follows:
*Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite (Gen. 26:34)
* Bashemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite (Gen. 26:34)
* Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael, sister of Nebajoth (Gen. 28:9)

However, according to Gen. 36:2-3, his wives were:
* Adah, daughter of Elon the Hittite
* Aholibamah, granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite
* Bashemath, daughter of Ishmael, sister of Nebajoth

After first marrying Judith the daughter of Beeri, Esau may have married Adah the daughter of Elon and nicknamed her “Fragrant.” The possibility exists that Adah died, whereupon he married Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael, and nicknamed her “Fragrant,” in honor of his dead wife. Another possibility is that Esau divorced Adah “the Fragrant” (which was allowed by secular Near Eastern law in the Patriarchal Era), and then married Mahalath, nicknaming her “the Fragrant” to spite Adah. Thus, Esau’s various marriages can be plausibly reconstructed as follows:

* First wife: Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite
* Second wife: Adah, “the Fragrant” (Bashemath), daughter of Elon the Hittite; deceased or divorced
* Third wife: Mahalath, “the Fragrant” (Bashemath), daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebajoth * Fourth wife: Aholibamah, granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite

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