Genesis 36:21

And Dishon, and Ezer, and Dishan: these are the dukes of the Horites, the children of Seir in the land of Edom.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

36:1-43 Esau and his descendants. - The registers in this chapter show the faithfulness of God to his promise to Abraham. Esau is here called Edom, that name which kept up the remembrance of his selling his birth-right for a mess of pottage. Esau continued the same profane despiser of heavenly things. In outward prosperity and honour, the children of the covenant are often behind, and those that are out of the covenant get the start. We may suppose it a trial to the faith of God's Israel, to hear of the pomp and power of the kings of Edom, while they were bond-slaves in Egypt; but those that look for great things from God, must be content to wait for them; God's time is the best time. Mount Seir is called the land of their possession. Canaan was at this time only the land of promise. Seir was in the possession of the Edomites. The children of this world have their all in hand, and nothing in hope, Lu 16:25; while the children of God have their all in hope, and next to nothing in hand. But, all things considered, it is beyond compare better to have Canaan in promise, than mount Seir in possession.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This notice of the Horites is in matter more distinct from what precedes, than the second is from the first paragraph in the chapter. "Seir the Horite." The Horite Genesis 14:6, was the cave-dweller, and probably got his name from the cave hewn out of the solid rock in which he was accustomed to dwell. Sela was a city of such excavated dwellings. If Seir here mentioned be the original Seir, then he is the remote father of the seven Horite dukes who belonged to the time of Esau. If he be their immediate parent, then he is named after that earlier Seir who gave name to the mountain range. "Who dwelt in the land." The sons of Seir dwelt in this land before the coming of the Edomites. Here follow the descendants of the then living dukes of the Horim. Hori, Lotan's son, bears the name of the nation. "Hemam," in Chronicles Homam, by a change of letter. "Timna," the concubine of Eliphaz Genesis 36:12. "Alvan" and "Shepho", in Chronicles Aljan and Shephi, by a reverse change of the same letters (see Genesis 36:11).

"Zibon." This we suppose to be different from Zibon the Hivite Genesis 36:2, Genesis 36:14. "Anah" is of course different from his uncle Anah the brother of Zibon the Horite. "The hot springs in the wilderness." There were various hot springs in the vicinity, as Kallirrhoe in Wady Zurka Main, those in Wady Hemad between Kerak and the Salt Sea, and those in Wady el-Ahsy. "Sons of Anah." The plural, sons, here is used according to the general formula, though only one son is mentioned. Oholibamah, being the daughter of Anah, and wife of Esau, while Eliphaz is married to her aunt Timna, is not likely to be the granddaughter by the mother's side of her uncle Zibon. This is in favor of Zibon the Hivite and Zibon the Horite being different individuals Genesis 36:2. "Anah" is here the brother of Zibon. The nephew Anah Genesis 36:24, bears the name of his uncle Genesis 36:20. "Dishon" is an example of the same community of name Genesis 36:21. All Dishon's and Ezer's sons have names ending in "-an." "Acan" יעקן ya‛ăqân (Jaacan) in 1 Chronicles 1:41 is a graphic error for ועקן va‛ăqân (and Acan). Uz; see Genesis 10:23; Genesis 22:21. In Genesis 36:29-30, the dukes are formally enumerated. "According to their dukes;" the seven officials of pre-eminent authority among the Horites. The official is here distinguished from the personal. This is a distinction familiar to Scripture.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

20-30. Sons of Seir, the Horite—native dukes, who were incorporated with those of the Edomite race.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And Dishon, and Ezer, and Dishan,.... These were three others of the sons of Seir, which with the other four before mentioned made seven:

these are the dukes of the Horites, the children of Seir in the land of Edom; these were in the land of Edom before it was so called and possessed by the Edomites, and whose posterity afterwards became tributary to them.

Geneva Study Bible

And Dishon, and Ezer, and Dishan: these are the dukes of the Horites, the children of Seir in the land of Edom.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Genesis 36:21

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

(parallel, 1 Chronicles 1:38-42). Descendants of Seir the Horite; - the inhabitants of the land, or pre-Edomitish population of the country. - "The Horite:" ὁ Τρωγλοδύτης, the dweller in caves, which abound in the mountains of Edom (vid., Rob. Pal. ii. p. 424). The Horites, who had previously been an independent people (Genesis 14:6), were partly exterminated and partly subjugated by the descendants of Esau (Deuteronomy 2:12, Deuteronomy 2:22). Seven sons of Seir are given as tribe-princes of the Horites, who are afterwards mentioned as Alluphim (Genesis 36:29, Genesis 36:30), also their sons, as well as two daughters, Timna (Genesis 36:22) and Aholibamah (Genesis 36:25), who obtained notoriety from the face that two of the headquarters of Edomitish tribe-princes bore their names (Genesis 36:40 and Genesis 36:41). Timna was probably the same as the concubine of Eliphaz (Genesis 36:12); but Aholibamah was not the wife of Esau (cf. Genesis 36:2). - There are a few instances in which the names in this list differ from those in the Chronicles. But they are differences which either consist of variation in form, or have arisen from mistakes in copying.

(Note: Knobel also undertakes to explain these names geographically, and to point them out in tribes and places of Arabia, assuming, quite arbitrarily and in opposition to the text, that the names refer to tribes, not to persons, although an incident is related of Zibeon's son, which proves at once that the list relates to persons and not to tribes; and expecting his readers to believe that not only are the descendants of these troglodytes, who were exterminated before the time of Moses, still to be found, but even their names may be traced in certain Bedouin tribes, though more than 3000 years have passed away! The utter groundlessness of such explanations, which rest upon nothing more than similarity of names, may be seen in the association of Shobal with Syria Sobal (Judith 3:1), the name used by the Crusaders for Arabia tertia, i.e., the southernmost district below the Dead Sea, which was conquered by them. For notwithstanding the resemblance of the name Shobal to Sobal, no one could seriously think of connecting Syria Sobal with the Horite prince Shobal, unless he was altogether ignorant of the apocryphal origin of the former name, which first of all arose from the Greek or Latin version of the Old Testament, and in fact from a misunderstanding of Psalm 60:2, where, instead צובה ארם, Aram Zobah, we find in the lxx Συριά Σοβάλ, and in the Vulg. Syria et Sobal.)

Of Anah, the son of Zibeon, it is related (Genesis 36:24), that as he fed the asses of his father in the desert, he "found היּמם" - not "he invented mules," as the Talmud, Luther, etc., render it, for mules are פּרדים, and מצא does not mean to invent; but he discovered aquae calidae (Vulg.), either the hot sulphur spring of Calirrhoe in the Wady Zerka Maein (vid., Genesis 10:19), or those in the Wady el Ahsa to the S.E. of the Dead Sea, or those in the Wady Hamad between Kerek and the Dead Sea.

(Note: It is possible that there may be something significant in the fact that it was "as he was feeding his father's asses," and that the asses may have contributed to the discovery; just as the whirlpool of Karlsbad is said to have been discovered through a hound of Charles IV, which pursued a stag into a hot spring, and attracted the huntsmen to the spot by its howling.)