Genesis 36

Notes

1. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 20

   וְאֵלֶּה תֹּלְדוֹת עֵשָׂו: the heading of 2:4, 5:1, 6:9, 11:10, 25:12, 25:19, given twice to Esau (36:1, 9) as it was to no other. The first introduces Esau's household in Canaan and its move (vv. 1–8); the second, his line in the mountain of Seir (vv. 9–43). Ishmael's producings (25:12–18) came just before Isaac's (25:19); Esau's come just before Jacob's (37:2). "Esau—he is Edom" takes up the naming at the red stew (25:30), and returns at vv. 8, 19, 43. The WPRB has "family history."

2. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 18, 19, 74

   The list of Esau's women does not match the earlier notices. At 26:34 they are Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite; at 28:9, Mahalath daughter of Ishmael, sister of Nebaioth. Here Adah is the daughter of Elon, Oholibamah the daughter of Anah, and Basemath the daughter of Ishmael. Genesis Rabbah and Rashi harmonize by second names (Basemath of 26:34 is Adah; Mahalath of 28:9 is this Basemath). The names are printed as each verse gives them. "Daughter of Anah, daughter of Zibeon": the Samaritan Pentateuch, the LXX and the Peshitta read "son of Zibeon," since Anah is Zibeon's son at v. 24; in the Masoretic text the second "daughter" may also be read of Oholibamah, Zibeon's granddaughter, and English keeps both. Zibeon is a Hivite here and a son of Seir the Horite at v. 20; חִוִּי and חֹרִי differ by one letter, and many read "Horite" here. The Masoretic "Hivite" is printed.

3. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 18

   The names in this chapter are printed in the Masoretic spelling, verse by verse; their forms, meanings, and the variants of 1 Chr 1:35–54, which repeats the lists, are in the names table below. Eliphaz the Temanite, the first of Job's friends (Job 2:11), carries the name of Esau's firstborn and of his son Teman (v. 11).

   See the table

4. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 19

   The qere is יְעוּשׁ "Jeush," and the ketiv here and at v. 14 is יעיש "Jeish"; v. 18 and 1 Chr 1:35 write יְעוּשׁ. The difference is a vowel letter in a name, with no difference of sense, so the qere is printed and the ketiv only recorded (19).

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 74

   וַיֵּלֶךְ אֶל־אֶרֶץ "and he went to a land" names no land. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX have "went out from the land of Canaan," and the Peshitta "went to the land of Seir"; modern versions supply "another land" (NJPS) or "a land away from" (RSV). The Masoretic text is printed as it stands. Esau was already in Seir when Jacob came back from Harran (32:4; 33:14–16); this chapter gives the reason for the move, the crowding of the herds (v. 7), not its date.

6. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 6

   "The land… was not able to lift them" is the sentence of Abram and Lot, almost word for word: "and the land did not lift them, to dwell together, for their gains were vast" (13:6). Again the brothers part for the size of their herds, and again one goes east of the land of promise. נָשָׂא keeps "lift," to carry. מִשֶּׁבֶת יַחְדָּו "too vast for dwelling together" is the מִן of excess.

7. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 18, 74

   Timna is a concubine here, a sister of the Horite chief Lotan (v. 22), and a chief's name in the list of v. 40; 1 Chr 1:36 counts Timna and Amalek among the sons of Eliphaz. Amalek is the enemy of Israel in the wilderness (Exod 17:8–16; Deut 25:17–19). b. Sanhedrin 99b: Timna, a king's daughter, wanted to join the family of Abraham and was turned away; she said, "Better to be a maid to this people than a princess of another," became Eliphaz's concubine, and from her came Amalek, who afflicted Israel, because the fathers should not have turned her away.

8. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "dukes" (KJV) / "chiefs" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 3, 33

   אַלּוּף is the head of an אֶלֶף, a "thousand," which is also a clan (Judg 6:15, "my thousand is the poorest in Manasseh"; Mic 5:1). It is used of the chiefs of Edom (here; Exod 15:15; 1 Chr 1:51–54) and of the clan-heads of Judah (Zech 9:7; 12:5–6). The Vulgate's dux, "leader," is the KJV's "duke." A homograph אַלּוּף is the close companion (Mic 7:5; Prov 16:28; Ps 55:14; Jer 3:4 "the companion of my youth"). The collocation decides (3), and "chief" is printed. "Chieftain" is נָשִׂיא's (17:20; 25:16).

9. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 74

   Korah is Oholibamah's son (vv. 5, 14, 18), and appears here also among the chiefs of Eliphaz. The Samaritan Pentateuch lacks "chief Korah" in this verse, and 1 Chr 1:36 does not list him among Eliphaz's sons. A second Korah, a clan of Eliphaz named for a son of Oholibamah, or a doubling: the Masoretic text is printed as it stands.

10. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 18

    The Horites are "the dwellers of the land" before Esau: Kedorlaomer struck them "in their mountain Seir" (14:6), and Deut 2:12, 22 says that the sons of Esau dispossessed them and dwelt in their place. Seir is both the mountain and the ancestor of its first people. The singular "the Horite" with the article is collective, here and at vv. 21, 29–30.

11. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 18

    Two Anahs stand in this genealogy: a son of Seir and brother of Zibeon (vv. 20, 29), and a son of Zibeon (vv. 2, 14, 24), the father of Oholibamah (v. 25). The list of Zibeon's sons opens with "and" (וְאַיָּה וַעֲנָה), printed "both… and"; 1 Chr 1:40 has the plain list.

12. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "found the mules" (KJV) / "found the hot springs" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 25, 40

    הַיֵּמִם occurs only here, and the versions divide. The Vulgate has aquas calidas, "hot waters," and the Peshitta "waters"; Jerome explains it from the hot springs of the region. The LXX transliterates (τὸν Ιαμιν). The Samaritan Pentateuch reads הָאֵימִם "the Emim," the giant people of 14:5 and Deut 2:10–11, and Onkelos and Pseudo-Jonathan render "the mighty ones." b. Pesahim 54a and Genesis Rabbah 82:14 take the word as "mules," which Anah found by crossing a donkey with a she-horse, as he shepherded donkeys; Rashi and the KJV follow. The RSV prints "hot springs" with the Vulgate. English cannot hold water, animals and a people in one word, and no reading has the support of a second occurrence (25). As the LXX did, the word is transliterated, so that no reading is printed over the others; the WPRB keeps it.

13. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 18

    At v. 25 Anah's son is Dishon (דִּשֹׁן); this verse then lists "the sons of Dishan" (דִישָׁן), the spelling of Seir's son at vv. 21, 28, 30. 1 Chr 1:41 has "the sons of Dishon" here, and many take v. 26 to continue v. 25. The Masoretic spelling is held. Hemdan (חֶמְדָּן) is Hamran (חַמְרָן) in 1 Chr 1:41; ד and ר are easily confused.

14. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "the Horites" (KJV) / "the Horites" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 127

    The source tags this word H2753, the personal name Hori (v. 22), but it is the collective gentilic הַחֹרִי of vv. 21 and 29, "the Horite." It is printed "Horite," with the source's tag kept and the departure logged here, as 127(d) did for 27:3. לְאַלֻּפֵיהֶם "by their chiefs" is chief by chief, or chiefdom by chiefdom.

15. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 74, 20

    "Before a king reigned for the sons of Israel" looks from a time when Israel had kings. Ibn Ezra reports that one Yitzhaki dated the list to the days of Jehoshaphat, and answers that "his book deserves to be burned"; he holds the verse to be prophecy. Spinoza cites it against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus 8). The promise "kings shall go out from your loins" was made to Jacob at 35:11; Edom's kings come first. Israel will ask for "a king, like all the nations" (1 Sam 8:5), and Edom already has one when Israel comes out of Egypt (Num 20:14). מָלַךְ is "reign" (20); the noun מֶלֶךְ is "king."

16. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "over the children of Israel" (KJV) / "over the Israelites" (RSV)

    Ruling 2

    The preposition is לְ, "for, to," as in "set for us a king" (1 Sam 8:5, שִׂימָה־לָּנוּ מֶלֶךְ). "Over" is עַל: "will you indeed reign over us?" (37:8, עָלֵינוּ). The king reigns for the people, on their behalf and at their asking; "for" keeps the two prepositions apart.

17. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 74

    The kings of Edom follow no dynasty: no son succeeds his father, and almost every king comes from a different city. "Bela son of Beor" is close to "Balaam son of Beor" (Num 22:5), and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan makes them one man, Balaam the wicked. Dinhabah is unknown.

18. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 18, 74

    The appendix to Job in the LXX (Job 42:17b–e) identifies Job with this king: Job "was formerly named Jobab," the son of Zare (Zerah) of the sons of Esau, his mother Bosorra (Bozrah), and he reigned in Edom after Balak son of Beor. Eliphaz the Temanite (v. 11; Job 2:11) and the land of Uz (v. 28; Job 1:1) belong to the same world. Bozrah is Edom's fortress city (Isa 34:6; 63:1; Amos 1:12). Zerah is also a son of Reuel (vv. 13, 17).

19. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Hadad" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 110, 18

    הֲדַד is a different name from חֲדַד, Ishmael's son (25:15), which was printed "Hadad" first in canonical order. Under ruling 110 the second takes a distinguishing spelling: the breve marks the hateph-patah of הֲ, and the names table gives both. It is the name of the storm god of Syria (Ben-hadad, 1 Kgs 15:18), and of the Edomite prince who fled to Egypt and came back to trouble Solomon (1 Kgs 11:14–22). 1 Chr 1:46–51 spells this king and Hadar (v. 39) alike as הֲדַד. "Struck Midian in the field of Moab": a war among Abraham's other sons (25:2), before Israel came near.

20. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 18

    שָׁאוּל is the name of Israel's first king, and of a son of Simeon (46:10), printed in its familiar form, "Saul" (the RSV has "Shaul"). In a list of the kings who reigned "before a king reigned for the sons of Israel" (v. 31), Edom has a Saul.

21. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Rehoboth by the river" (KJV) / "Rehoboth on the Euphrates" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 18

    הַנָּהָר with the article is "the River," the Euphrates, at 15:18 and 31:21, and the RSV and Onkelos read it so here. A king of Edom from the Euphrates is far from Edom, and a Rehoboth on a nearer river (the Wadi Zered, or a stream in Edom) has also been suggested. The lowercase "river" keeps both; Rehoboth-ir of 10:11 is another city.

22. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 18, 74

    Hadar alone of the kings has no death notice and has a named woman; the list may end in the writer's own day. 1 Chr 1:50–51 calls him Hadad, spells his city Pai, and adds "and Hadad died." מְהֵיטַבְאֵל "Mehetabel" is "El does good," and מֵי זָהָב "Mezahab" is "waters of gold." "Daughter of Mezahab" is either a grandfather or a place, as "daughter of Zibeon" at v. 2; the Targums make Matred a man who toiled at the refining of gold.

23. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 18

    A second list of Edom's chiefs, now "by their places": several names are of persons above (Timna, v. 12; Oholibamah, v. 2; Kenaz and Teman, v. 11), and here name clans and districts. Timna and Oholibamah are women's names given to chiefdoms. Elah is the word "terebinth" (35:4).

24. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 2

    "He is Esau, the father of Edom" closes the chapter on the words of its headings (vv. 1, 9), and leads into the producings of Jacob, which begin with Joseph (37:1–2). מוֹשָׁב "seat" (where one sits and dwells) and אֲחֻזָּה "tenure" (land held) keep their home glosses; the WPRB has "settlements" and "the land they held."