GENESIS

Notes on Genesis 36

Here we have the generations of Esau. Esau is not forgotten by the Lord. When God sent the children of Israel back into the land that was promised to them from the time of Abraham, He would not allow them to take any of the land of Esau. Esau was a man of the flesh, Jacob was a man of the spirit and was chosen as the one to inherit the promised land and also be the seed from which would come the salvation of the whole world. Still God did not abandon Esau. In later years though, descendants of Esau rejoiced when Israel was being attacked. They became enemies of Israel and fought with them many times. In doing so, they lost their place and their nation.

Genesis 36:1 Now these are the generations of Esau, who is Edom.

Edom means red taken from the red pottage that caused Esau's birthright to be taken from him. The land in which Esau dwelled was at the foot of the Dead Sea.

Genesis 36:2 Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan; Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite;

This was a grief to Isaac and Rebecca for the daughters of Canaan was considered wicked. They worshipped other gods and the children of Israel was forbidden to marry into those people because of idolatry. The idolatry was very wicked because innocent children were sacrificed to these idols.

God always has a good reason for His commandments. Idols and images used for worship leads to receiving unclean and evil spirits. This will cause people to do evil to innocent children. False religions are also dangerous to the souls of men and women. The innocent suffer in all false religions or true religions that turn to apostasy. We need fresh spiritual renewal with God and be filled with God's spirit which is given to those who will believe in His Son, Jesus Christ.

There is now no other way but through Jesus to be saved from sin and filled with the spirit of God. All other ways are false religions systems that bring no salvation. Even some Christian religions are not living as the scriptures teach us to live. If we trust in baptisms, rituals, ceremonies, sacraments to save, then we are not fully trusting in Jesus alone for our salvation. Jesus is the only way. He brings salvation. He died for our sins. We can't get rid of it by religious systems which cause us to depend upon man, man's rituals, man's ways to save.

John told us to keep ourselves from idols. We must stay away from the temptation to use images in our worship. God is not to become an image. Nothing can be substituted for the real God and worshipping Him in spirit and in truth.

Genesis 36:3 And Bashemath Ishmael's daughter, sister of Nebajoth.

Esau married her to please His family. He knew his choice of a wife from the daughters of the Canaanites displeased his parents.

Genesis 36:4 And Adah bore to Esau Eliphaz; and Bashemath bore Reuel;
5 And Aholibamah bore Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these are the sons of Esau, which were born unto him in the land of Canaan.
6 And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, 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.

Esau no doubt recognized that Jacob had inherited Canaan and he was to dwell elsewhere. This showed that he feared God and submitted to the will of God.

Genesis 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.
8 Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir: Esau is Edom.

This land was previously occupied by a race of giants. There are some that teach that the giant races of Canaan were caused by the fallen angels of God taking the daughters of men for wives and these produced giants. This happened twice. Once before the flood and again after the flood. These angels were then bound so that they could no longer do this. The book of Jude speaks of this. The descendants that came from those unlawful unions were to be destroyed. God waited though until they were so evil, they were beyond repentance. How much of this is a true interpretation, I don't know but I often wondered why God told Israel not to even allow the women and children to live among these people and in other places they were to allow the women and children to live. It could be that the evil was in their seed and nothing could change them. Something to think about.

In saying that though, I must add that we now live in the day of mercy and grace where we are to preach the gospel to the whole world according to the instructions Jesus gave His disciples. We do not conquer lands by force and military might now. The followers of Jesus must not use cruelty and force but we are to preach the gospel of salvation to all who will hear.

We are not to judge some unworthy and think they cannot be saved. God would not allow Abraham to take over the land of Canaan when he lived. He waited until the iniquity was full before allowing the children of Israel to conquer the land of Canaan. God always prefers to save and not destroy. We must have the attitude of love and compassion; always wanting to see the salvation of souls brought to Jesus. If they reject, God will judge, we are not supposed to harm one human being for religious reasons or use force to spread religion.

We live now in a different time period where the only thing the believers in Jesus are to do is to preach the gospel. We are never to take over lands by force and kill the inhabitants. We can defend our families if another nation invades our nation but we are not to go in and use force to conquer nations. We are to preach the gospel.

When we came to the United States, we should have preached to the Indians instead of conquering them. It is my understanding that the Indians were friendly at first. I may be wrong about that but they needed the gospel. In saying that, not all of the new settlers from England conquered the Indians. Some made friends with them. So we never judge all white settlers for what a few did and we also don't judge all Indians to be savages because a few may have been.

Slavery was another mistake the southern early Americans made. Slave traders brought slaves to the south where plantation owners needed workers. Now we know better so we can remind ourselves that as believers in Jesus, we need to preach the gospel. In saying that again, those in the north opposed slavery and fought against it. Some preachers preached hard against slavery. We must remember too that there were poor white people that lived in the south who didn't own large plantations and didn't own any slaves.

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 bore 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 bore 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.
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 Esh-ban, 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.
31 And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.

God really preferred that Israel not have kings. Kings became oppressors in many nations. They ruled according to their own hearts and not always for the good of the people. It is better to have leaders who are accountable and do not have total authority. We see also ranks and titles like dukes which exalt one over another is also not very good. It encourages slavery and oppression of those not born into a family of royalty.

I think the presidential system in the United States is the best way. We have three branches of government to balance the other ones. Sometimes I think we allowed the judicial branch a little too much authority though. The founding fathers meant to all branches to be equal and balance out the authority each one had. It is a good system but it will only work if we maintain the fear of God.

Democracy will not work if people forsake God. Democracy brings freedom but it also brings the freedom to do evil. Without the fear of God and moral restraints, Democracy will fail and the rejection of God's divine order will open us up to total moral decay, violence and rioting which then results in submitting to a totalitarian type of person that takes over and rules harshly in order to control the violence. We need to judge ourselves as a nation so that we do not have to be judged by God. Actually we don't have to be directly judged by God. Our evil lifestyle causes the law of reaping and sowing to take affect. The United States is a constitutional republic instead of a Democray but the same thing applies, without moral restraints it will fail.

Genesis 36:32 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,
G2 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.

It is strange that all the exalting of people is so vain. Calling people Dukes and making kings is a waste of time because when they die everyone is the same.

When I study the history of any nation it is so easy to see that those that fear the Lord excel and are not destroyed. Those that forsake the Lord are given time to repent but the rebellious and the evil ones are eventually destroyed. As far as I know Esau does not exist any longer. Some believe one grandson of Edom has descendants in Turkey. They could be scattered among other nations. DC

Genesis 37