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:
Esau ... took to wife. If the pious feelings of Abraham recoiled from the idea of Isaac forming a matrimonial connection with a Canaanite woman, that devout patriarch himself would be equally opposed to such a union on the part of his children; and we may easily imagine how much his pious heart was wounded, and the family peace destroyed, when his favourite but wayward son brought no less than two idolatrous wives among them-an additional proof that Esau neither desired the blessing nor dreaded the curse of God. These wives never gained the affections of his parents; and this estrangement was overruled by God for keeping the chosen family aloof from the dangers of pagan influence. The Samaritan version reads Mahalath, instead of Bashemath (see the note at Genesis 36:2-3).