Isaac's Wells
And they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah. Genesis 26:35 · Berean Standard Bible
These marriages were a source of deep grief and frustration for both Isaac and Rebekah.
This is heartbreak. Isaac and Rebekah cared about their heritage and the promises God had made to their family. Esau's marriages to outsiders violated the family's understanding of their covenant identity. It's the kind of generational pain that happens when children choose differently than their parents hoped.
The narrator
You're moving toward the conflict that will define the rest of Genesis. While God blesses Isaac and peace comes to his household, division is growing in his own family. Esau's choices set the stage for why Jacob matters so much to God's story. The covenant line will continue through Jacob, not Esau—and that choice wasn't made arbitrarily.
Esau's marriages to these Hittite women caused significant grief to both Isaac and Rebekah, a profound family crisis rooted in violation of covenantal endogamy.
The Hebrew phrase 'brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah' (וַתִּהְיֶינָה מֹרַת־רוּחַ לְיִצְחָק וּלְרִבְקָה) employs the idiomatic 'bitterness of spirit' (מֹרַת־רוּחַ), denoting profound emotional anguish rather than mere disapproval. The parallelism—grief to both parents—emphasizes the marriage's violation of covenantal principle as a shared family concern. The narrative positions this at chapter's end as a shadow over Isaac's material success and blessing: despite wells, covenants, and divine promise, the firstborn son's choice threatens the covenantal line itself. This echoes similar language in Genesis 26:8 (regarding Isaac and Rebekah's deception) and prepares for the Jacob-Esau conflict that will dominate Genesis 27-36.
The narrator, registering the family's response to Esau's marriages and their covenantal significance.
This final notation subordinates Isaac's triumphant chapter to a larger tragedy: the threatened transmission of covenant through the elder son. Where Isaac achieved blessing and territorial security, he faces the prospect that his own son will abandon covenantal boundaries. The chapter thus ends not with resolution but with tension—a signal that the generational transmission of promise remains contested and uncertain, requiring Jacob's elevation to secure it.
33So he called it Shibah, and to this day the name of the city is Beersheba.
34When Esau was forty years old, he took as his wives Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite.
35And they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah.
Read all of Genesis 26 — Isaac digs wells and gets pushed out. He digs again. And again. Quiet perseverance in a chapter that's easy to overlook — but shouldn't be.
This page covers one. BibleKey does all 31,102 — tap any verse for its meaning, any word for its Hebrew or Greek root, and keep reading without leaving the chapter.
NIV, NLT, NKJV, KJV and the Berean — plus the Catholic NLT-CE and Douay-Rheims, with the full deuterocanon in the reading order.
Tap any of the 31,102 for what it means, and any word for its Hebrew or Greek root, without leaving the chapter.
Start recording at church and put your phone away. You get the transcript, the key moments, and every verse referenced.
Say what's sitting on your heart and hear it back as a real prayer, in a warm voice. Keep the ones that land.
The whole Bible in a year — five chapters a day, five days a week, weekends off. Built to be finished.
A verse each morning with its meaning, how it lands today, something to sit with, and a prayer to close it.
Not just the famous ones. BibleKey is free on iPhone and iPad.
Download on the App StoreFree on iPhone & iPad