Commentary
Skeptic's Annotated Bible
36:1 Now these are the generations of Esau, who is Edom.
Oh great, more genealogies.
36:2 Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan;
Okay, Canaan is the son of Ham, the son of Noah. Esau is the great great great great great great great great great grandson of Shem. Here's what I mean:
There's no way this is correct. I suppose it just means "daughters who are descendents of Canaan." Remember, Canaan was cursed because Ham saw his drunk father Noah naked; so the Edomites are entangled with a cursed family line. Anyway, back to the many wives of Esau. He already has Judith and Bashemath and Mahalath (his half cousin from Abraham and Hagar via Ishmael). Let's see who else:
Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite;
Note: Anah is the daughter of Zibeon. This comes up below.
36:3 And Bashemath Ishmael's daughter, sister of Nebajoth.
Wait, Bashemath is Ishmael's daughter too? In Genesis 26 we are told that Bashemath is the daughter of Elon the Hitite: "26:34 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." She can't be both the daughter of Elon and the daughter of Ishmael, so I suppose this means there are two Bashemaths (could have been a common name?). Ugh, what a mess.
At this point Esau has five or six wives, depending on whether you believe Bashemath refers to the same person from Gen 26 or not. Jamieson believes that he has only three, that these are renamings of his existing wives. But this can't be, because Bashemath can't both the the daughter of Ishmael and the daughter of Elon. Since Bashemath can't have two fathers (and I'm going to assume that the Bible here is not contradicting Gen 26), I'm depicting this as six wives (two of which are his half cousins via Ishmael), but it doesn't really matter to the story. Whether he has three or five or six wives, he's still a polygamist; and two of his wives are his cousins.
36:4 And Adah bare to Esau Eliphaz; and Bashemath bare Reuel;
36:5 And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these are the sons of Esau, which were born unto him in the land of Canaan.
36:6 And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters,
Nice how no daughters were mentioned, just the sons. If a daughter gets mentioned, it must mean that she's going to be married to someone important, or raped or murdered (or all of the above).
and all the persons of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance, which he had got in the land of Canaan; and went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob.
36:7 For their riches were more than that they might dwell together; and the land wherein they were strangers could not bear them because of their cattle.
36:8 Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir: Esau is Edom.
36:9 And these are the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in mount Seir:
Remember, Edom was an epithet that Jacob used to tease Esau because he was red. Gen 25:30. Now we're using it to characterize an entire group of people, the descendants of Esau. This would be like calling all Mexicans "wetbackites" or all Jewish people "hooknoseites." Really offensive!
36:10 These are the names of Esau's sons; Eliphaz the son of Adah the wife of Esau, Reuel the son of Bashemath the wife of Esau.
36:11 And the sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, and Gatam, and Kenaz.
36:12 And Timna was concubine to Eliphaz Esau's son; and she bare to Eliphaz Amalek:
So in this case we're not even bothering to claim that Timna was Eliphaz's wife, she's just some slave that he got pregnant. Which makes him an adulterer as well as a polygamist (and a slave owner).
these were the sons of Adah Esau's wife.
36:13 And these are the sons of Reuel; Nahath, and Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah: these were the sons of Bashemath Esau's wife.
36:14 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.
36:15 These were dukes
Dukes? Probably more like "sheiks." Translation issue.
of the sons of Esau: the sons of Eliphaz the firstborn son of Esau; duke Teman, duke Omar, duke Zepho, duke Kenaz,
36:16 Duke Korah, duke Gatam, and duke Amalek:
Nice that Amalek can be a Duke even though he's a bastard.
these are the dukes that came of Eliphaz in the land of Edom; these were the sons of Adah.
In 36:14 Korah is the son of Aholibamah, but here Korah is the grandson of Adah (Eliphaz's son). So I'm going to assume, then, that there are two Korahs: the son of of Aholibamah, and Duke Korah, the son of Eliphaz.
36:17 And these are the sons of Reuel Esau's son; duke Nahath, duke Zerah, duke Shammah, duke Mizzah: these are the dukes that came of Reuel in the land of Edom; these are the sons of Bashemath Esau's wife.
36:18 And these are the sons of Aholibamah Esau's wife; duke Jeush, duke Jaalam, duke Korah: these were the dukes that came of Aholibamah the daughter of Anah, Esau's wife.
Here we make Korah the son of Aholibamah a Duke as well; but this doesn't change the fact that Korah was also identified as a son of Eliphaz in 36:14. The Bible never makes mistakes, right? There must be two Korahs.
36:19 These are the sons of Esau, who is Edom, and these are their dukes.
Whew, glad that's over. In this family tree I'm removing three of Esau's wives for brevity, since they don't seem to be the mothers of any dukes (or mentioned ever again).
36:20 These are the sons of Seir the Horite, who inhabited the land; Lotan, and Shobal, and Zibeon, and Anah,
Do I care? I'm not sure. I'll refrain from making any trees for these folks for now, but we'll see if I need to revisit this.
Um, but wait a sec. Anah here is a son of Sier, but in 36:2 she's a daughter of Zibeon. So they can't be the same person, right? Different fathers, different genders. This must be a different Anah.
36:21 And Dishon, and Ezer, and Dishan: these are the dukes of the Horites, the children of Seir in the land of Edom.
36:22 And the children of Lotan were Hori and Hemam; and Lotan's sister was Timna.
36:23 And the children of Shobal were these; Alvan, and Manahath, and Ebal, Shepho, and Onam.
36:24 And these are the children of Zibeon; both Ajah, and Anah: this was that Anah that found the mules in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father.
36:25 And the children of Anah were these; Dishon, and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah.
This is apparently the same Aholibamah, daugher of Anah, who Esau is married to. But this would mean that the Anah under discussion is the daughter of Zibeon (and a girl), even though in 36:24 Anah is clearly a boy ("this was Anah that found the mules in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father").
Either Zibeon has both a son and a daughter named Anah; or Anah is a hermaphodite; or the Bible is just confused (guess which one I vote for?). But other than being extremely confusing, I don't actually care.
36:26 And these are the children of Dishon; Hemdan, and Eshban, and Ithran, and Cheran.
36:27 The children of Ezer are these; Bilhan, and Zaavan, and Akan.
36:28 The children of Dishan are these; Uz, and Aran.
36:29 These are the dukes that came of the Horites; duke Lotan, duke Shobal, duke Zibeon, duke Anah,
36:30 Duke Dishon, duke Ezer, duke Dishan: these are the dukes that came of Hori, among their dukes in the land of Seir.
36:31 And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.
36:32 And Bela the son of Beor reigned in Edom: and the name of his city was Dinhabah.
36:33 And Bela died, and Jobab the son of Zerah of Bozrah reigned in his stead.
36:34 And Jobab died, and Husham of the land of Temani reigned in his stead.
36:35 And Husham died, and Hadad the son of Bedad, who smote Midian in the field of Moab, reigned in his stead: and the name of his city was Avith.
36:36 And Hadad died, and Samlah of Masrekah reigned in his stead.
36:37 And Samlah died, and Saul of Rehoboth by the river reigned in his stead.
36:38 And Saul died, and Baalhanan the son of Achbor reigned in his stead.
36:39 And Baalhanan the son of Achbor died, and Hadar reigned in his stead: and the name of his city was Pau; and his wife's name was Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred, the daughter of Mezahab.
36:40 And these are the names of the dukes that came of Esau, according to their families, after their places, by their names; duke Timnah, duke Alvah, duke Jetheth,
None of these "dukes that came from Esau" were mentioned above, so I'm assuming that these are just descendents of Esau (Edomites) who may come into the story later, whose exact lineage is not important. Much like "daughters of Canaan" doesn't mean his immediate daughters, just descendents.
36:41 Duke Aholibamah,
So women can be dukes too? Or is this a gender-neutral name that here refers to a male descendent of Esau?
duke Elah, duke Pinon,
36:42 Duke Kenaz, duke Teman, duke Mibzar,
36:43 Duke Magdiel, duke Iram: these be the dukes of Edom, according to their habitations in the land of their possession: he is Esau the father of the Edomites.
Blah blah blah, duke duke duke. Unless these people come up later in some meaningful way, I'm going to ignore all of these lineages. Maybe this was more interesting to the people of the time, who have some context for recognizing these people? My guess is that the author here is trying to make the Bible sound like more authoritative history, either by making up all of these royal lineages, or by incorporating known historical figures. Doesn't make it history, though.
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