Beeri

Two men named Beeri appear in the UPDV, separated by centuries and ancestry: a Hittite whose daughter Esau married, and the father of the prophet Hosea.

Beeri the Hittite

The first Beeri is identified by ethnicity in the patriarchal narrative. Esau's marriage choice grieves Isaac and Rebekah: "And when Esau was forty years old he took as wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite" (Ge 26:34). Beeri's only role in the text is as Judith's father, paired with Elon as a second Hittite father-in-law.

Beeri the Father of Hosea

The other Beeri opens the book of Hosea. The superscription names him to fix the prophet's identity: "The word of Yahweh that came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel" (Ho 1:1). Nothing more is said of him; he is the patronymic that anchors Hosea in time.