Esau's lineage begins with his deliberate choice to marry Canaanite women, intentionally distancing himself from Abraham's family [ביאור יש״ר, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. However, the historical record presents a striking discrepancy between the names of his wives listed at this stage and those mentioned earlier in his life, alongside a highly complex family ancestry.
The primary approach among commentators is that these are the exact same women known previously, but they carried multiple names or aliases [רד״ק, חזקוני]. In this view, Adah is actually Basmat. She earned the name Basmat because she burned fragrant spices for idolatry, and she was called Adah because she adorned herself with jewelry for pagan gods [רש״י, רמב״ן, חומת אנך]. Alternatively, Esau gave her the name Adah to express his sadness that his family's blessing had departed from him [ביאור יש״ר]. Similarly, Oholibamah is actually Yehudit. In a calculated effort to deceive his father, Isaac, and project an illusion of righteousness, Esau changed her name to Yehudit to imply she had rejected idolatry. He further obscured her origins by changing her father's name from Anah to Beeri and her tribal affiliation from Hivite to Hittite, as the Hivites were notorious for extreme idolatry and flawed lineage [רש״י, רמב״ן, שפתי חכמים, גור אריה, משכיל לדוד, יריעות שלמה]. Her true name, Oholibamah, hints at her actual nature: inventing tents and altars for idol worship [חומת אנך].
Presenting a contrasting perspective, other commentators suggest Oholibamah is an entirely different, later wife whom Esau married upon relocating to Mount Seir. In this view, Yehudit died childless and is therefore omitted from the current record, which only catalogs the wives who bore Esau children [רשב״ם, העמק דבר, שד״ל, ביאור יש״ר, הדר זקנים]. It was precisely his marriage to Oholibamah that ultimately drew Esau to settle permanently in Mount Seir [ספורנו].
A second complication arises regarding Oholibamah's ancestry, as she is simultaneously identified as the daughter of Anah and the daughter of Zibeon. A straightforward reading suggests Anah was Zibeon's son, meaning Oholibamah is simply being identified by both her father and her grandfather, following the biblical convention of referring to grandchildren as children [רשב״ם, רד״ק, ביאור יש״ר, חזקוני, מחוקקי יהודה].
However, the primary approach among commentators views this dual attribution as a testament to the profound moral corruption within the families of Canaan and Seir. According to this tradition, Zibeon fathered Anah through an incestuous relationship with his own mother, and later fathered Oholibamah with his daughter-in-law, Anah's wife. Consequently, she is attributed to both men, highlighting a lineage steeped in forbidden unions [רש״י, מזרחי, גור אריה, משכיל לדוד, פרדס יוסף].
Other scholars offer distinct resolutions to this complex ancestry. One perspective proposes that Zibeon died childless from one of his wives, prompting his son Anah to perform a levirate marriage. The resulting daughter, Oholibamah, whose name conceptually hints at the tent of a levirate widow, was legally considered Zibeon's child under these laws, though biologically fathered by Anah [שד״ל]. Finally, another tradition maintains that Anah was actually a woman, making Oholibamah the daughter of Anah, her mother, and Zibeon, her father [אבן עזרא, הדר זקנים בשם רבנו תם].