a. Esau is Edom. In verse one we are told that this is the book of Esau, that is, Edom. Look at the end of verse 8. It says, “Esau is Edom”. Verse 9 says that Esau is the father of the Edomites. Verse 19 says, “Esau (that is, Edom). Finally, verse 43 says, “the chiefs of Edom (that is, Esau, the father of Edom). Are you picking up the idea? Edom is another name for Edom. The people named in this chapter, except for those in verses 20-30 are descendants from Esau. Of course, we know this because we read the rest of Genesis. Back in Genesis chapter 25 we read the story of Esau selling his birthright. “Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.)” Isn’t it interesting that the nation that descended from Esau would be forever linked to this moment when Esau traded his birthright for a bowl of red lentil stew. His rejection of the birthright is what is preserved for his heritage. b. These are the sons. Next, in verses 2-5 we read about Esau’s three wives, Adah, Oholibamah, and Basemath that all gave him sons. Here we find a biblical puzzle. The names of the three wives here do not match up with the two mentioned at the end of chapter 26 and the one mentioned in 28:9. The question over the centuries has been, how many wives did Esau have? Some say he had just three but their names were changed by Esau or they already had more than one name. Some say he married four wives. Others reckon that he had six. The answer is that we don’t know for certain how many wives he had. The different names doesn’t mean that this a contradictory part of the Bible. There are very good plausible answers for why there are different names recorded in the different places. We just aren’t told upfront what the right answer is. Not knowing the right answer does not change the main idea of the text. What we know for certain is that Hebrews 12 tells us Esau was a sexually immoral and unholy man. He took wives from the Canaanites and from his uncle Ishmael. These wives brought heartache to Isaac and Rebekah. Rebekah would tell Isaac, “I loathe my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women like these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?” In verse six we are told the Esau took all that he had, his wives, his sons, his daughters (which are not named), and all the members of his household, his livestock, his beasts and all his property and moved permanently to the hill country of Seir. The reason we are given as to why he had to move was because the land could not support all of the animals that both Jacob and Esau had. This should sound familiar to you because it is the same reason why Abraham and Lot had to go their separate ways. God’s chosen, Abraham, had to stay in the land of Canaan and Lot had to leave. Jacob, God’s chosen, had to stay in the land of Canaan and Esau had to leave.