If this account be compared with that Genesis 26:34, we shall find some difficulties, which yet admit of an easy reconciliation, if these things be considered.
1. That it is very usual, and confessed by all, that the same persons are oft called by several names.
2. That the names of some persons are in Scripture given to others, because of a great resemblance between them. Upon which account the parents of the Israelites are called Armorites and Hittites, Ezekiel 16:3; and the governors of Jerusalem are called the rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah, Isaiah 1:10; and John the Baptist is called Elias, Matthew 17:12.
3. That the same men ere ofttimes denominated from several countries, as Christ is noted to have a threefold country in Scripture; Bethlehem by his birth, Nazareth by his education, and Capernaum by his much residence and preaching there.
4. That the same names are sometimes common to men and women.
5. That persons are called the children, not only of their immediate parents, but of their grandparents, and of those who adopted them. These things premised, the seeming contradictions objected by infidels do vanish. She who was properly called Judith, Genesis 26:24, is here called Aholibamah, a name which seems to be given her either by Isaac or by Moses, from her settledness in her idolatrous courses. And Adah was also called Bashemath, Genesis 26:34; and Mahalath, Ishmael's daughter, was called Bashemath, either because in her principles and manners she resembled Esau's other wife so called, or to show that Ishmael's marriage to a third wife was no less opprobrious to him and displeasing to his parents than the former. Anah, a man, and the son of Zibeon, as appears from Genesis 35:24, called here a Hivite, is called Beeri the Hittite, Genesis 26:34, either because those two people were mixed together in habitation and by marriage, or because the one people were larger than the other, and comprehended under their name, or because he was a Hivite by birth, a Hittite by habitation or incorporation with them. Hence also we may learn how Aholibamah here comes to be the daughter both of Anah and of Zibeon; the one being either the natural or proper father, and the other either the grandfather, or father by adoption.