Genesis 36:1-37:1

January 15, 2017

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

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The sermon starts at 19:30 in the audio file.

Or, Your Father Was an Edomite

I do not believe in torture. I am also not, as I’ve said before, what might be called a “genealogy guy.” So you may wonder why I would ask Jim to read all of one of the longest chapters in Genesis plus one verse, and then attempt to preach all of it in one sermon, knowing that this section is mainly a long list of fathers and sons. And it’s not even the elect line. God’s people don’t look to find their heritage here.

I will say that this is a challenging chapter. Most of the men in this chapter are obscure even to vocational Bible historians and, of course, all of the men in this chapter are dead. It is likely that all of the men in this chapter are in hell. The primary verb, at least that is understood, is “fathered,” which is more like setting the stage than driving the drama. There’s not much other action. The people and places are presented like a chronological phone book, except that no one wants to call any of these deceased. So I get that it is challenging.

But I also believe that each one of these verses is profitable. Paul told Timothy that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable.” In context, “Scripture” refers to the Old Testament, and “all Scripture” certainly includes Genesis 36. Moses was no less moved by the Holy Spirit when he wrote this chapter than he was for chapter 1, or 3, or 12, or 22, or any other. So it will return a good investment of our reading and attempt to understand it.

And Moses intended for us to give it our attention. As I already said, it is one of the longest chapters in this first book of the Law. We might have returned the first draft of Genesis and asked Moses to write more in chapter 6 about the identity of the mighty men and less in chapter 36 about the identify of the Horites.

In addition to attention by proportion, there is also repetition in Genesis 36 unlike anywhere else in Genesis. Moses goes through the “generations of Esau” twice (see verses 1 and 9). The toledot divides Genesis into 10 smaller books, but every other “generations” just gets one go-round.

It would be very easy, probably preferable to modern readers with a penchant for book blurbs more than books, to cut out verses 9-43. Verses 1-8 start with the generations and end with “Esau settled in Seir.” We could pick up very nicely in 37:1 with the contrast: “Jacob lived in the land of Canaan.” Yet for some reason Esau’s generations are repeated and greatly expanded.

I want to observe what’s on both tables and then see if we can walk away with some profit in our spiritual pockets.

Edom in the Family Sphere (verses 1-8)

“Isaac breathed his last” and “his sons Esau and Jacob buried him” (Genesis 35:29). It is time to move on in the story. As with every other change of generations, the non-elect son is treated first. This was true with Cain before Seth, Japheth and Ham before Seth, Ishmael before Isaac, and now Esau before Jacob. The story of Jacob’s descendants (mainly Joseph) begins in 37:2 and runs through the end of Genesis.

These are the generations of Esau (that is, Edom). Edom means “red,” the color of Esau’s skin and the color of the stew for which Esau sold his birthright. The new name becomes even more significant in the next section.

Esau took his wife from the Canaanites, to the embitterment of his parents and the disapproval of the LORD. The three women named here are not the same names as listed before in Genesis 26:34 and 28:9 (Judith, Basemath, and Mahalath). Here his wives are named as Adah, Oholibamah, and Basemath. I lean toward the explanation that the same woman might take a different name (like Sarai to Sarah) rather than that Moses didn’t know what he was doing, or that he got it wrong, or that Esau had that many more wives. There is still a problem since the father’s names are di[...]