Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir: Esau is Edom.
Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir. This was divinely assigned as his possession (Joshua 24:4; Deuteronomy 2:5). It was not a "land of promise" to him, as Canaan was to Jacob; but as the prediction in his father's testamentary blessing pointed, so he received it as the fulfillment of his destiny, Providence paving the way for it in the natural course of events. Having become allied by marriage with the family of Seir, he removed to the mount, and settled there with his family. Upon the rapid increase of his descendants into a tribe, it became evident that both the Edomites and the Horites could not find room enough in the country, and that the one or the other must give way; the former disputed the possession, and having, by Heaven favouring his arms, proved superior in the contest, Esau destroyed the great mass of the Horites, and, incorporating the remnant with his own race, finally "dwelt in mount Seir," as the dominant power. х See`iyr (H8165), hairy, rough, rugged.]
Mount Seir, inhabited by the Edomites, included that mountainous region which extends from the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf, the northern part of which is called Jebal [Gebaleenee, Josephus], and the southern Esh-Sherah (Robinson's 'Biblical Researches,' b. 2:, p. 552; Robinson's 'Physical Geography of Palestine,' p. 42; Burckhardt's 'Travels,' p. 401).