Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #13 in Genesis 36, and we will read Genesis 36:12-14:

And Timna was concubine to Eliphaz Esau's son; and she bare to Eliphaz Amalek: these were the sons of Adah Esau's wife. And these are the sons of Reuel; Nahath, and Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah: these were the sons of Bashemath Esau's wife. And these were the sons of Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah the daughter of Zibeon, Esau's wife: and she bare to Esau Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah.

I will stop reading there.  We were looking at Aholibamah, one of Esau’s wives.  There are three wives listed.  We saw that she must be the woman called Judith in Genesis 26:34-35:

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: Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.

By the way, the name “Judith” is Strong’s #3067 in the Hebrew Concordance, and it is identical to #3066.  We only find Judith as a name once in the Bible, but the word is identical to #3066, which is translated as “in the Jews’ language,” oddly enough.  We see that in 2Kings 18:26:

Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna, and Joah, unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and talk not with us in the Jews' language in the ears of the people that are on the wall.

The word translated as “in the Jews’ language” is the same word translated as “Judith.”  They are spelled identically. 

It is also a word that is related to the word translated as “Jew” or “Jews,” Strong’s #3064.  And this word is used for “Jew” or “Jews” throughout the Old Testament.  So we wonder, “Was Judith a Jew?”  No.  She could not have been a Jew because there was no such thing as a Jew at the time she married Esau.  Esau was 40 years old when he married her, and it was the year 1967 B. C.  The nation of Israel had not been formed, and they had not gone into Egypt; they would not go there for 90 more years, and the tribes were not formed.  The first mention I could find referring to a “Jew” in the Old Testament is found in 2Kings. 16:6:

At that time Rezin king of Syria recovered Elath to Syria, and drave the Jews from Elath: and the Syrians came to Elath, and dwelt there unto this day.

This was over a thousand years after Judith married Esau, so there would be a thousand years with no reference to “Jews.”  Perhaps it is a spiritual thing that God is relating to this woman that has to do with the Jews.  That is possible, but from what we can read, there were no Jewish people of whom she could have been a part.  So this is odd, and I thought I had mentioned it last time.

In our last study we discussed the fact that Judith was the daughter of Beeri the Hittite.  Beeri is only found twice in the Old Testament, and the second reference is in Hosea 1:1: “Hosea the son of Beeri…”  And they were Jews.  So it is interesting that Beeri, the father of Hosea, was a Jew.  And the name “Judith” identifies with being a Jew, but it is not the same Beeri.  Judith’s father was Beeri the Hittite, and it was still many, many centuries away from the time of Hosea. 

So we have every reason to believe that Judith was the same woman as Aholibamah.  And the other two wives also had different names, so why would it not also be the case for Judith?  So it would not be out of the ordinary.  It would seem to be customary that these women had other names.  So there would seem to be no problem with Judith being Aholibamah.  However, she is said to be the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, but in chapter 36 Aholibamah is the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite.  And that is what we want to investigate (as best we can) to try to understand how this might be possible.

So we started by looking at the Hittites, and we saw that the Hittites are the same as the children of Heth, and Heth was the son of Canaan.  So their ancestry can be traced to Canaan, and Canaan can be traced back to Ham, and then Noah.  We saw in Genesis 25:8-10 that Abraham died, and he was buried in the cave he had earlier purchased from Ephron the Hittite who dwelt among the children of Heth.  Yet we also read in Genesis 25 that he purchased it of the children of Heth, making Ephron the Hittite to be of Heth.  It is the only way we can understand that, as there was full identification between the Hittite and the children of Heth.  And we have further proof of that.  Again, Esau married two wives in Genesis 26:34, and both were said to be daughters of men that were Hittites, and verse 35 told us that this was a grief of mind to both Isaac and Rebekah.  Then in the next chapter, we find the blessing was given (to Joseph), and Esau hated his brother because he had supplanted him and received the blessing in a deceitful manner, so Esau thought to comfort himself by killing his brother.  So Rebekah went to Jacob, and she said Genesis 27:43-46:

Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran; And tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's fury turn away; Until thy brother's anger turn away from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done to him: then I will send, and fetch thee from thence: why should I be deprived also of you both in one day? And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?

Here, we can quickly see why Rebekah referred to the daughters of the land as “the daughters of Heth,” because her other son Esau had married two daughters of Hittites, and the Hittites were “of Heth.”  It was a grief of mind to Rebekah, and she is bringing this to Isaac to convince him that he must send Jacob to Haran to find a wife there instead of the daughters of this land.  “What good will my life do me if Jacob marries a daughter of Heth like Esau did?”  I think this is pretty strong confirmation that the Hittites are the same as “Heth.”

So we have that clear, and we are helped because Heth came from Canaan, and so did the Hivites, as we saw back in Genesis 10:15-18.  We read that the Hivites can trace their lineage back to Canaan.  Could that account for the reference to “Beeri the Hittite,” and then the reference to Anah and Zibeon being Hivites?  No.  They were related in some way, but there must be another explanation how that could be, and I do not know if we are going to find that answer.  We are spending a lot of time trying to “straighten this out” in our minds, and to solve the mystery, but we may not get a full answer. 

What I thought would be good for us to do is to look at the Hivites, and I have spent time trying to see if there was integration of Hivites and Hittites somewhere along the line, but there are few references to both.  We can see that the Hivites had some cities that the Israelites conquered.  We read of Gibeonites…and I know I am giving a lot of various names, but that is one of the reasons why the Bible is so complex because God uses all these names frequently.  And if we would learn to get more familiar with them, and if we learned “who was who,” it would really help our Bible comprehension.  But the Gibeonites were the people that feigned themselves to be strangers from a far land, and they came to the Israelites wearing old garments and shoes, and carrying moldy bread, but they really lived nearby.  And Joshua made peace with them; there was a league made with them, so the Israelites had to spare their cities.  We read about these Gibeonites in Joshua 9:3-9:

And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai, They did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up; And old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them; and all the bread of their provision was dry and mouldy. And they went to Joshua unto the camp at Gilgal, and said unto him, and to the men of Israel, We be come from a far country: now therefore make ye a league with us. And the men of Israel said unto the Hivites, Peradventure ye dwell among us; and how shall we make a league with you? And they said unto Joshua, We are thy servants. And Joshua said unto them, Who are ye? and from whence come ye? And they said unto him, From a very far country…

So the inhabitants of Gibeon were identified with being Hivites, and they were of Gibeon. 

It also says in Joshua 9:16-18:

And it came to pass at the end of three days after they had made a league with them, that they heard that they were their neighbours, and that they dwelt among them. And the children of Israel journeyed, and came unto their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim. And the children of Israel smote them not, because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by JEHOVAH God of Israel. And all the congregation murmured against the princes.

By the way, this is a wonderful picture of the Gospel.  The Gibeonites became ministers to the congregation of Israel.  They hewed wood and drew water in service to the congregation.  So this is a historical parable that pictures God’s elect, so that is a positive and good thing. 

And we are told of their cities, and their cities and land, ultimately, became part of the tribe of Benjamin, and we find these four cities listed as part of Benjamin’s inheritance in Joshua 18:21-28.  Yet these people were Gibeonites, and Gibeonites are “Hivites.” 

There is one interesting thing (and I do not know if this relates), but one of their cities was “Beeroth,” and the word “Beeroth” is related to “Beeri,” where we read of Beeri the Hittite in Genesis 26:34 as the father of Judith.

The word “Beeri” is Strong’s #882, and it means “my well.”  The word “Beeroth” also means “well,” and it is Strong’s #881.  So that means that there was a Hivite city with the name of Beeroth, which identifies with “wells.”  I am mentioning this because we have this apparent discrepancy regarding Judith being the daughter of “Beeri the Hittite,” but in Genesis 36, Aholibamah is the daughter of Anah, and Zibeon the Hivite.  So here we see that Beeroth is part of the Hivite territory.  Again, this is what I found as I tried to solve that “riddle,” to see what we can learn about it.

We will stop at this time.  We are continuing to go through this chapter and these Scriptures, just trying to straighten out our understanding of these things, and as you can see, it is not easy at all.  But thank God that we have His Spirit to guide us into truth, or we would not know anything about the Bible.  God could easily hold back all these truths, and yet He kindly and graciously reveals a great deal of things to our understanding, and we are thankful for that.