Genesis
36:9 ¶ And these are the generations of
Esau the father of the Edomites in mount Seir: 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.
11 And the sons of Eliphaz were Teman,
Omar, Zepho, and Gatam, and Kenaz. 12
And Timna was concubine to Eliphaz Esau’s son; and she bare to Eliphaz
Amalek: these were the sons of Adah Esau’s wife. 13 And these are the sons of Reuel; Nahath, and
Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah: these were the sons of Bashemath Esau’s wife.
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. 15
These were dukes of the sons of Esau: the sons of Eliphaz the firstborn
son of Esau; duke Teman, duke Omar, duke Zepho, duke Kenaz, 16 Duke Korah, duke Gatam, and duke Amalek:
these are the dukes that came of Eliphaz in the land of Edom; these were the
sons of Adah. 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. 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.
19 These are the sons of Esau, who is
Edom, and these are their dukes.
Genesis
36:20 ¶ These are the sons of Seir the
Horite, who inhabited the land; Lotan, and Shobal, and Zibeon, and Anah,
21 And Dishon, and Ezer, and Dishan:
these are the dukes of the Horites, the children of Seir in the land of Edom.
22 And the children of Lotan were Hori
and Hemam; and Lotan’s sister was Timna. 23
And the children of Shobal were these; Alvan, and Manahath, and Ebal,
Shepho, and Onam. 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. 25 And the children of Anah were these; Dishon,
and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah. 26
And these are the children of Dishon; Hemdan, and Eshban, and Ithran,
and Cheran. 27 The children of Ezer are
these; Bilhan, and Zaavan, and Akan. 28
The children of Dishan are these; Uz, and Aran. 29 These are the dukes that came of the Horites;
duke Lotan, duke Shobal, duke Zibeon, duke Anah, 30 Duke Dishon, duke Ezer, duke Dishan: these
are the dukes that came of Hori, among their dukes in the land of Seir.
Genesis
36:31 ¶ And these are the kings that
reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of
Israel. 32 And Bela the son of Beor
reigned in Edom: and the name of his city was Dinhabah. 33 And Bela died, and Jobab the son of Zerah of
Bozrah reigned in his stead. 34 And
Jobab died, and Husham of the land of Temani reigned in his stead. 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 And Hadad died,
and Samlah of Masrekah reigned in his stead. 37
And Samlah died, and Saul of Rehoboth by the river reigned in his stead.
38 And Saul died, and Baalhanan the son
of Achbor reigned in his stead. 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. 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,
41 Duke Aholibamah, duke Elah, duke
Pinon, 42 Duke Kenaz, duke Teman, duke
Mibzar, 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.
What followed
verse 8 was a brief history of the ancient kingdom of Edom, which flowered and
decayed before Israel ever had a king, from the Horites who first possessed it
through a few generations of Edomites. Edom, named after that red soup,
symbolizes Esau’s foolish bargain. We have this memory forever emblazoned in
the name of the Red Sea.
1Kings 9:26 And
king Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which is beside Eloth, on the
shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom.
Add this fact to
the list of things that keep us from forgetting what God did in the past. We
drive on fossil fuels, the remnant of the fabulous biomass that existed before
the great Flood of Noah’s time. We are divided by ethnic, linguistic, and
racial groupings that remind us of the dispersion of mankind at the Tower of
Babel. We repeat in each generation the wicked sins of the flesh and the mind
that prove that we are spiritually bankrupt without Christ and have no hope in
ourselves. These things should remind us of what God has done but we choose to
be willfully ignorant.
Even judgment
against us escapes our feeble thought processes. A hundred years ago the
nations of Europe and the United States, who thought they were so righteous and
each special vessels of God, bashed themselves upon each other in a terrible
bloodbath called The Great War or World War One. God judged the nations and
finding them wanting judged them with a war and then a great plague of disease
that killed more people than the war itself. They did not see that it was God’s
judgment but only chose to blame the loser and punish thereby setting up the
next war and, indeed, a century of war and the extinguishing of a hundred
million lives and displacement of half that many again as refugees. Yet,
mankind is blind to it, a doddering idiot, stumbling about in the dark
unwilling to be enlightened.
So it is, when we
look at the Bible events we see evidence of them in our landscape, our maps,
our economic systems, our politics, and elsewhere. But, alas, the stumbling
idiot stumbles from one judgment to the next waving his flags, singing his
patriotic songs, worshipping his nation-states, as he proudly steers a course
for Armageddon.
This curious verse
for which we are given no explanation is worthy of note.
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.
Such a seemingly
unimportant detail but important enough to God to be included in the short
history of a people who provided little to history but a pathetic example.
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