a king · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
reigned
מָלְכ֖וּmal.Khu
H4427
to reign · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
land
בְּאֶ֣רֶץbe.'E.retz
H776
the earth (at large · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
Edom
אֱד֑וֹם'e.Dom
H123
Edom · proper noun, a man's name
before
לִפְנֵ֥יlif.Nei
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
reigned
מְלָךְme.lokh-
H4427
to reign · verb, qal infinitive construct
king
מֶ֖לֶךְMe.lekh
H4428
a king · noun, common masculine singular absolute
children
לִבְנֵ֥יliv.Nei
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵֽלYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Genesis 17:6 And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
Genesis 17:16 And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be…
1 Chronicles 1:43-50 Now these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel; Bela the son of Beor: and the…
Genesis 25:23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people sha…
Numbers 20:14 And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen…
Numbers 24:17-18 I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel…
Deuteronomy 17:14-20 When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will se…
Deuteronomy 33:5 And he was king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 36:31–end
By degrees, it seems, the Edomites wormed out the Horites, obtained full possession of the country, and had a government of their own. 1. They were ruled by kings, who governed the whole country, and seem to have come to the throne by election, and not by lineal descent; so bishop Patrick observes. These kings reigned in Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel, that is, before Moses's time, for he was king in Jeshurun, Gen 36:3. God had lately promised Jacob that kings should come out of his loins (Gen 35:11), yet Esau's blood becomes royal long before any of Jacob's did. Note, In external prosperity and honour, the children of the covenant are often cast behind, and t…
kings of Edom--The royal power was not built on the ruins of the dukedoms, but existed at the same time.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 36:31
Before there reigned any king over - Israel - I suppose all the verses, from Gen 36:31-39 inclusive, have been transferred to this place from Ch1 1:43-50, as it is not likely they could have been written by Moses; and it is quite possible they might have been, at a very early period, written in the margin of an authentic copy, to make out the regal succession in Edom, prior to the consecration of Saul; which words being afterwards found in the margin of a valuable copy, from which others were transcribed, were supposed by the copyist to be a part of the text, which having been omitted by the mistake of the original writer, had been since added to make up the deficiency; on this conviction he…
And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom,.... In the land that was afterwards called the land of Edom; for this laud was not so called when these kings began to reign: for, according to Bishop Cumberland (f), and those that follow him (g), these were Horite kings, who, after their defeat by Chedorlaomer, Genesis 14:5; in order to secure themselves the better from such a calamity for the future, set up a kingdom, and which appears, by the following account, to be elective; and so Maimonides (h) observes, that not one of these kings were of Edom: and these were:
before there reigned any king over the children of Israel; and there being no kings over Israel until many years aft…
The Church Fathers
ON THE KINGS OF EDOM. — These are the kings who reigned in Edom before a king reigned in Israel. This passage must not be understood, as if it contained the number of all the kings, from Edom, until the time when the kingdom began in Israel even in the days of Saul. There were many kings in Edom before the coming of Saul in the days of the Judges, which preceded the kingdom; but among these kings Moses could only name those who lived before his death. And not surprised to find, from Abraham to the last king named by Moses, through Esau, the father of the people of Edom; by Raguel the son of Esau; by Zara, son of Raguel; by Jacob the son of Zara, and by Balak his successor, who is given as the first king of Edom, more generations than are counted by Jacob from Abraham to Moses. There indeed are nearly twelve generations, and here scarcely seven as far as Moses. It may have happened that where there are the most, there have been more kings to succeed each other, because death took them away more quickly. Thus, following a different order, St. Matthew has two generations, from Abraham to Joseph (Mt. 1:1-17); St. Luke, according to another order, and counting the generations, not by Solomon, but by Nathan, enumerates fifty-five from Abraham to Joseph (Lk. 3:23-28). In the line where we count the most generations, death has been more prompt than in that where it counts the least. And in fear lest we should be astonished that Balak the son of Beor should be numbered with the kings of Edom, and because of the likeness of the name, it is not imagined that it was this Balac who resisted Moses, the leader of the people of Israel, it must be known that this was Moabite and not Idumean, and that he was from Sephor and not from Beor; there was in the days of Moses a son of Beor, whose name was Balaam, and not Balak, and it was this same Balak who called Balaam to curse the people of Israel (Num. 22:2-6). [
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Bashemath — Sweet-smelling. (1.) The daughter of Ishmael, the last of Esau’s three wives (Gen. 36:3, 4, 13), from whose son Reuel four tribes of the Edomites sprung. She is also called Mahalath (Gen. 28:9). It…
Bela — A thing swallowed. (1.) A city on the shore of the Dead Sea, not far from Sodom, called also Zoar. It was the only one of the five cities that was spared at Lot’s intercession (Gen. 19:20, 23). It is…
Duke — Derived from the Latin dux, meaning “a leader;” Arabic, “a sheik.” This word is used to denote the phylarch or chief of a tribe (Gen. 36:15-43; Ex. 15:15; 1 Chr. 1:51-54).
Edom — (1.) The name of Esau (q.v.), Gen. 25:30, “Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage [Heb. haadom, haadom, i.e., ‘the red pottage, the red pottage’] ...Therefore was his name called Edom”,…
Governor — (1.) Heb. nagid, a prominent, conspicuous person, whatever his capacity: as, chief of the royal palace (2 Chr. 28:7; comp. 1 Kings 4:6), chief of the temple (1 Chr. 9:11; Jer. 20:1), the leader of…
Duke · Title of the princes of Edom — Title of the princes of Edom
Edomites · Kings of — Kings of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
These are the kings that reigned, etc We must keep in memory what we have said a little before, that reprobates are suddenly exalted, that they may immediately fall, like the herb upon the roofs, which is destitute of root, and has a hasty growth, but withers the more quickly. To the two sons of Isaac had been promised the honor that kings should spring from them. The Idumeans first began to reign, and thus the condition of Israel seemed to be inferior. But at length, lapse of time taught how much better it is, by creeping on the ground, to strike the roots deep, than to acquire an extravagant pre-eminence for a moment, which speedily vanishes away. There is, therefore, no reason why the fai…
(Parallel, Ch1 1:43-50). The Kings in the Land of Edom: before the children of Israel had a king. It is to be observed in connection with the eight kings mentioned here, that whilst they follow one another, that is to say, one never comes to the throne till his predecessor is dead, yet the son never succeeds the father, but they all belong to different families and places, and in the case of the last the statement that "he died" is wanting. From this it is unquestionably obvious, that the sovereignty was elective; that the kings were chosen by the phylarchs; and, as Isa 34:12 also shows, that they lived or reigned contemporaneously with these. The contemporaneous existence of the Alluphim an…
It is not clear how these kings of Edom were related to Esau. The clans in Edom followed the same pattern of organization as the later tribes of Israel. They eventually chose a king from one of their tribes and carried on a line of succession from him.
36:31 before any king ruled over the Israelites: This editorial note was probably inserted into the text during Israel’s monarchy (see study note on 35:20).
Rashi on Genesis 36:31
’ואלה המלכים וגו AND THESE ARE THE KINGS etc. — There were eight and Jacob raised an equal number in whose days the kingdom of Esau temporarily ceased to exist, viz., Saul, Ishbosheth, David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Asa, Abiah and Jehoshaphat. For of the days of Yoram his (Jehoshaphat’s) son it is written, (2 Kings 8:20) “In his days Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah and made a king over themselves”, whereas in the days of Jehoshaphat it is written, (1 Kings 22:48) “And there was no king in Edom: a deputy was king”.
