Genesis 36:1 - Meaning and Application

Here we are told about Esau, who is also called Edom. That name kept alive the memory of his foolish trade, when he sold his birthright for that red stew. Just hearing the name is enough to remind us why his family is given so brief an account here. If people do wrong, they should not be surprised when that wrong is remembered later to their shame.

The passage also speaks of his wives and the children they had for him in the land of Canaan. He had three wives, but together they bore him only five sons. Many people have more children by one wife than Esau had by all three. In his providence, God often frustrates those who try to build a family by dishonest or doubtful means, though here the promise still carried Esau's line forward.

We are also told about Esau's move to Mount Seir, the land God gave him as his own, while He reserved Canaan for Jacob's family. God later says plainly, "I gave Esau Mount Seir" (Deuteronomy 2:5; Joshua 24:4). That is why the Edomites were not to be driven out of that land. Even if a person does not have a title to land by promise, like Jacob had to Canaan, he may still have a real title by God's providence, as Esau had to Mount Seir.

Esau seems to have started settling in Seir even before Jacob returned from Padan-aram, the region where Jacob had lived with Laban (Genesis 32:3). It is likely that Isaac had sent him there, much as Abraham had sent the sons of his concubines away from Isaac to the east country (Genesis 25:6). This would have made the way clearer for Jacob to take possession of the promised land. While Isaac was still alive, Esau may have kept some property in Canaan, but after Isaac's death he moved away completely.

He took with him what came to him from his father's personal goods and left Canaan to Jacob, not only because Jacob had God's promise, but also because Esau saw that both families could not keep growing there together. So Esau lived in Mount Seir (Genesis 36:8). Whatever resistance men make, God's word will be carried out. In the end, even those who fought against it must yield and accept it, because God's plans will stand, and so will the limits He has set for where we live.