When Esau was forty years old: Esau’s age is said to be the same as Isaac’s was when he married Rebekah (25.20).

Took to wife is the same expression used in 6.2. The Hebrew form is “took wife” and is best rendered in English as “he married.”

Judith the daughter of Be-eri the Hittite: the name Judith should not be confused with the Deuterocanonical book of that name, and the name is not mentioned elsewhere. Be-eri does not occur elsewhere except as the name of the father of the prophet Hosea (Hos 1.1).

And Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite: Basemath‘s name is repeated five times in chapter 36. Elon‘s name occurs again in 36.2.

For some readers the term Hittite will be nothing more than a name, and the important fact that the women were of a different tribe from Isaac and his family may need to be brought out. Good News Translation gives the information in its heading “Esau’s foreign wives”; some other translations say at the beginning of this verse “Esau … married two girls who were not of his own tribe; he took Judith….”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .