ואלה תולדות עשו, “and these are the descendants of Esau;” the prefix ו in the word: ואלה is to remind the reader that since the Torah had already listed the 12 sons of Yaakov, the time had come to list the descendants of Esau.

עשו לקח את נשיו מבנות כנען וגו, “Esau had taken his wives from the daughters of the Canaanites, etc.;” here the Torah fails to mention the daughter of Beeri, although in Genesis 26,34 we have been told that Esau took Yehudit who was a daughter of Beeri, a Hittite as a wife. We must therefore assume that the reason she is not mentioned here is that she died without having provided Esau with any sons. All the sons mentioned in this chapter therefore must have been born by עדה בת אלון, who is identical with the wife called בשמת בת אלון, in Genesis 6,34 She had changed her name, just as had the daughter of Yishmael, which has now been called בשמת, whereas when she had first been introduced she had been called מחלת. (Compare 28,9.)

אהליבמה בת ענה, who according to Rashi is identical with יהודית. If you were to ask: is this not the יהודית בת בארי as we have been told in 26,34? How could she now have been the daughter of ענה? Moreover, if we deal here with a woman who was a bastard, why did Rashi not say that she was the combined product from these two fathers as he explained concerning ענה בת צבעון? We are forced to answer that בארי and ענה were one and the same person.

בת ענה בת צבעון. In this paragraph you find that ענה was a brother of צבעון, as is written: ושובל וצבעון וענה (and Shoval and Tzivon and Anah.” (verse 20.) You also find written in verse 24 that “these were the sons of Tzivon and Ayah and Anah;” this is what Rashi referred to that Tzivon must have slept with his own mother and from this carnal union Anah was born. In other words, he was both his son and his (half) brother. This is why the Torah wrote the unusual phrase: הוא ענה, “this is the Anah,” i.e. the one we have read about earlier. (Mentioned in verse 20) It is also possible to say that the meaning of the words בת ענה בת צבעון, really is that he was the grandson, that Tzivon was the grandfather. It is not unusual in the Torah for grandchildren being described as the children of their grandfather. Examples cited are: בת מטרד בת מי זהב, in verse 39 of our chapter. There is an opinion voiced in the Talmud Baba Batra folio 115, that ענה is not the name of a male but of a female because the Torah wrote successively: בת ענת בת צבעון, “daughter of Anat, daughter of Tzivon.” If you were to counter that earlier we have read about הוא ענה אשר מצא את הימים, “he was the Anah who discovered the species yemim,” so how could that have been a female? We would have to answer that she inherited in lieu of Ayah who was a male, and whose brother was a brother of Anah. The fact that “he” is not listed among the sons who founded or became leaders of thousands, i.e. alufim, would lend support to the opinion that we are dealing with a female who could not qualify for such a rank

ואהליבמה ילדה את יעיש, and Oholibama bore Yayish. This name is spelled יעיש but is read as if it had been spelled יעוש.

לך אל ארץ, “he went (emigrated) to a land.” Esau conquered the land of Seir from the people known as Chorim. Rashi explains what motivated Esau to leave the land of Canaan voluntarily. If you were to counter that at the beginning of this portion it is written: ארצה שעיר שדה אדום, “that Yaakov had dispatched his messengers to ”the land of Seir otherwise known as the field of Edom, (which gives the reader the impression that Esau had already taken possession of that land at that time) and it entitles us to think that Esau already lived there, we have to assume that up until the period mentioned in our verse here he had lived alternately both in the land of Canaan and in the land of Seir. It was only after Yaakov had returned to the land of Canaan and the brothers had been reconciled, that Esau vacated the land of Canaan, thus acknowledging that this would become the land possessed as ancestral home by the descendants of Yaakov.

מפני יעקב אחיו, “on account of Yaakov, his brother.” Seeing that he had sold the birthright to Yaakov, thus making Yaakov the legal heir of Yitzchok, he left for a foreign country to show that he did no longer dispute Yaakov’s claim to that land.

ותלד לעשו את יעוש “she bore Ye-ush for Esau.” The word is spelled as יעיש, but read as if it had been spelled יעוש.

אלוף קרח, “a chieftain over a thousand, named Korach. This person has already been listed amongst the sons of Eliphaz that has been mentioned in Chronicles I 1,36, seeing that the Korach who was a son of Oholivamah is a different Korach. In the tractate Sotah 13, Rashi explains that there was a Korach who was the son of Eliphaz as well as a Korach who was the son of Oholivamah. Some commentators argue that both times the Torah refers to the same Korach; the reason why the Torah mentions the “second” Korach is only because he lived together with the alufey Eliphaz. His mother Oholivamah died while Korach was still very young and she adopted him and raised him with her own children. We find something parallel concerning Amalek, who is linked together with the sons of Adah because he was the son of Adah’s servant maid.

אלה בני שעיר וגו, “these were the sons of Seir, etc.” We do not know Seir’s ancestry. The Torah mentions his offspring merely in order to distinguish them from Esau’s offspring, seeing that the Torah (Deuteronomy 2,12) discusses them in connection with the nations whom the Israelites under Moses and Joshua are not to attack or harass.

יושבי הארץ, “the inhabitants of the land;” originally that land had belonged to them as we know from Deuteronomy 2,12: ובני עשו יירשום וישבו תחתם, “an the descendants of Esau disinherited them and settled there in their place.

וצבעון וענה, “and Tzivon and Anah;” this was the same Tzivon who had slept with his mother as a result of which Anah had been born. Subsequently, he slept with his daughterinlaw, the wife of Anah, as a result of which he produced Oholivamah, Esau’s wife.

ודישון ואצר ודשן, as well as Dishon, Atzar, and Dishan.” According to the vocalisation by the authors of the tradition that we rely on, the sequence for reading these names is as follows: דישון, דישן, דישון, דישן, דישן דישון, דישן to help us memorize this sequence (these names appear a total of seven times) it pays to commence with the seventh day, i.e. Shabbat. On the seventh day the second day and the fifth day of the week (the three days of the week the Torah is read in public) this recalls the spelling with the letter ו. On the days of the week when we do not read from the Torah in public, i.e. first, third, fourth and sixth day, this recalls the times it is read as if spelled defectively. Do not be astounded concerning the phrasing of: ואלה בני דישן חמדן וגו', “and these were the sons of Dishon, Chemdon,” in verse 27. This refers to the first time we read about דישון. Verse 27 refers back to דישן in verse 26 which should have been vocalised as דישון. We must understand that whenever in the Holy Scriptures books written later, refer to names of persons or places which appear spelled differently from the first time they had appeared, they refer to the ones mentioned the first time in the Bible, unless otherwise stated. Examples of the names of the same people, or the same verbs, being spelled differently in different Books of the Bible, are: Samuel II 22 as opposed to Psalms chapter 18, where the word מגדל, in verse 51 of the former means the same as the word מגדיל in the verse 51 of Psalms.[You will note the similarity of the subject matter in both chapters, plus the fact that both of these words appear in verse 51 of the chapter mentioned. Compare also Genesis 32,32 and 31 respectively, where the name of the place פנואל is once spelled with the letter ו and the other time with the letter י in the middle. Compare the spelling of the ears of corn in Pharaoh’s dream in Genesis 41,7 as דקות, and when Joseph interprets it in about it in Genesis 41,27, as רקות. Our author cites a few more examples which I have decided to skip as he has made his point. Ed.]

ואחות לוטן תמנע, “Lotan’s sister was called Timna.” Seeing that Lotan was the senior of the brothers, Timna’s name appears next to his. [Normally, we would have expected the sequence: ותמנע אחות לוטן, “Timna was the sister of Lotan.” Ed.] We find a similar example of this construction in Genesis 28,9, as well as in Exodus 15,20 and in Exodus 6,23.

אשר מצא את הימים, “who discovered the yemim. According to Rashi, these were animals that resulted from crossbreeding, and the Torah names him in order to chastise him for having successfully violated the principle of not crossbreeding. If you were to question that Anah could not have been the first person having done this as Rashi himself commenting on Genesis 26,13 on the words: ויגדל מאד, writes that people at that time already used to say that “the dung of the mules of Yitzchok are worth more than the gold of their king,” which proves that mules, which are the result of crossbreeding horses and donkeys already existed and people were familiar with them, we have to understand this verse as follows: Anah was the first person who deliberately mated donkeys with horses. Prior to this, mules existed but they resulted from the mother animal having mated with a horse of its own account. The word: מצא means that he developed a system of breeding such animals successfully. He noted that in order to tell which animal was the result of a male donkey mating with a female horse, and which was the product of a sheass having mated with a male horse, if the animal has thin ears it is the product of a female horse and a male donkey; when the ears are thick, it is proof that the mother animal was a sheass and it had mated with a male horse. Seeing that G-d is very displeased with such procedures being undertaken by man, he is blamed for such practices having been introduced. Another interpretation: the Torah wishes the reader to know that the animals resulting from crossbreeding are not included in the blessing given by the Creator to all the creatures He had created. Proof of this is the fact that such creatures cannot sire or give birth to another generation of their breed.

ואלה בני ענה, “and these are the offspring of Anah:” even though the verse mentions both בני ענה as well as בת ענה they are the same person.

לפני מלך מלך לבני ישראל, ”before a king ruled over the Children of Israel;” the “king” referred to here is none other than Moses. We know that he was the equivalent of a crowned king from Deuteronomy 33,5: ויהי בישורון מלך, “he was King over Yeshurun” (pseudonym for Jewish people). The reason he was described by this “title” was that he had been the saviour of the Israelites when he took them out of Egypt.” [The word מלך is derived from מוליך, leading. He who is the leader of others is described as their “king,” i.e. מלך. Ed.] It would be incorrect to understand the comparison of historical developments between the descendants of Esau with those of the Jewish people who did not have a crowned head until Samuel crowned Shaul as their king about 400 years after Moses’ death as recorded in Josephus, for after the kings mentioned here at least 40 kings whose names we know ruled over Edom before the ascent to the throne of the Jewish people by King David. Here only eight of these kings have been named. There were 14 generations between Avraham and King Shaul. When David ascended the throne of the Jewish people he deprived the Edomites of their King. We know this from Samuel II 8,14: וישם באדום נציבים ויהיו כל אדום עבדים לדוד, “he appointed governors in Edom, and all of Edom became a vassal state to David.” You find confirmation of this in Chronicles I 18,13.

וימלוך תחתיו הדד, “Haddad reigned in his stead.” The second time the word Haddad appears, it is spelled with the letter ד, whereas the third time it is spelled with the letter ר, i.e. הדר.

ואלה שמות אלופי עשו למשפחותם למקומותם, “the following are the names alufim (clans) of Esau, according to their names and locations.” These latter ones were the principal descendants to be counted separately in each city that they dwelled; this is why here the Torah adds the word: למקומותם, “according to the localities they lived in.” The Torah also adds the word: אחוזתם, “their ancestral homes,” in verse 43. Proof of the importance of the ones listed here is the fact that the previous ones have not been listed in Chronicles I 1,51 54 at all.