Was Mahalath a Canaanite and did Esau marry her to get back at his father, Isaac?<\/p>\n\t
“When Esau was forty years old, he took as wives Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. And they were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah<\/em>” (Genesis 26:34-35).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Esau married two Hittite women, people who did not follow God. The Hittites are descendants of Heth, the son of Canaan. So Esau’s first two wives were Canaanites. They were a constant irritation to his parents. So when it was time for Jacob to marry, Rebekah insisted that Jacob go back to her own people to find a wife.<\/p>\n
“And Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, like these who are the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”<\/em>” (Genesis 27:46).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That this took Jacob way from Esau and his pledge to murder Jacob after Isaac died was an extra bonus to Rebekah. Isaac agreed with Rebekah and sent Jacob away.<\/p>\n
“Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, and said to him: “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan”<\/em>” (Genesis 28:1).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Esau watched all of this. He still thought that he could somehow win a favorable blessing from Isaac.<\/p>\n
“Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Padan Aram to take himself a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,” and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Padan Aram. Also Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan did not please his father Isaac. So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had<\/em>” (Genesis 28:6-9).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He thought he could fix things by adding yet a third wife, this time marrying a cousin (after all Jacob was being sent to marry a cousin). However, we see that he didn’t bother to travel far and didn’t really consider the character of the family he was marrying into. Like many people, Esau thought he could fix a problem that he created by doing more of the same thing.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: Was Mahalath a Canaanite and did Esau marry her to get back at his father, Isaac? Answer: “When Esau was forty years old, he took as wives Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. And they were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah” (Genesis…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[26,189],"class_list":["post-29388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-esau","tag-genesis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":41871,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/im-confused-by-the-names-of-esaus-wives\/","url_meta":{"origin":29388,"position":0},"title":"I’m confused by the names of Esau’s wives","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 12, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, I have a question regarding the question asked to you: \"Was Mahaleth a Canaanite and did Esau marry her to get back at his father Isaac?\" Part of your reply mentioned Genesis 28:9, \"so Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael.\" In my Bible,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":91057,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/dont-marry-a-canaanite\/","url_meta":{"origin":29388,"position":1},"title":"Don’t Marry a Canaanite","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 6, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Nathan Combs via Think on These Things God cares deeply about whom His people marry. When Abraham commissioned his oldest household servant to find a wife for Isaac, he instructed him to swear that he would not take a wife from the daughters of the Canaanites (Genesis 24:3). God\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92741,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-did-isaac-want-to-bless-esau\/","url_meta":{"origin":29388,"position":2},"title":"Why did Isaac want to bless Esau?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 22, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hey there. Regarding Genesis 27. Why does Isaac intend to bless Esau when the prophetic voice had already declared, \"The older shall serve the younger\" (Genesis 25:23)? Also, why does Isaac twice indicate that he suspects that Jacob is pulling a trick on him, yet does nothing? It seems\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26035,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/could-jasher-be-right-about-jacob-spending-14-years-with-eber\/","url_meta":{"origin":29388,"position":3},"title":"Could Jasher be right about Jacob spending 14 years with Eber?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: You wrote: The Book of Jasher claims that Jacob fled to Eber's home: \"And Jacob was very much afraid of his brother Esau, and he rose up and fled to the house of Eber the son of Shem, and he concealed himself there on account of his brother, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":410,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/410-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":29388,"position":4},"title":"How were Isaac and Jacob blessed?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 19, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: How were Isaac and Jacob blessed? Answer: In the times of the Old Testament children could inherit two things from their parents: property and a blessing. If your parents had three children, then on their death their property was divided four ways (one more than the number of living\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":52055,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/rebekah\/","url_meta":{"origin":29388,"position":5},"title":"Rebekah","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: Genesis 24:1-26 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In archaeology, historians at times notice odd gaps in the records \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Even in well preserved records, there will be missing time periods. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Monuments are clearly defaced. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0C.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Typically what it indicates that something happened during that time which later generations did not want\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}