This sheet on Genesis 36 was written by Hayuta Deutsch for 929 and can also be found here
Names, along with dates of birth and death, used to be inscribed on the inner cover of prayer books. It is a fascinating document that is important to the family, and quite boring for everyone else. The list of Esau’s descendants and that of the clan leaders belongs to the latter type: it is not our family genealogy, and therefore, from the start, it is tiresome.
Of course this is a mistake. Behind each list is a story, even if requires a little imagination to reconstruct it or invent it. Do the copper mines in southern Israel (in Timna, see Genesis 36:22) immortalize a concubine? Was Ada, the wife of Esau, named after one of Lamech's two wives? What perfume did Basemath (bosem, “perfume”) use?
The super-power of the Edomite clan leaders lies in the decision to include their long and strange list within our sacred canon. From that moment on, history and memory and literature began to play with these characters. Due to this playful literary creativity, a pointless list has become a collection of stations in a timeless road map: Oholibamah (Genesis 36:2) Esau's wife winks at us in a poem by Rabbi Judah Halevi (entitled “Young Dove, You Carried Her”) where the name Oholibamah appears three times but creatively divided to yield new meaning. Halevi writes: “V’Oholi-Bamah L’O, V’Oholiva Ma…” whose English translation does not capture or convey the play on words: “My tent is the place of celebration, therein shrills the litany of words! I ask where is my refuge in this world! Is He still with me.”
Likewise, in the title book of Uri Zvi Greenberg's poems we meet an anonymous clan leader named Saul of Rehoboth-on-the-river (Genesis 36:37). Utz (Genesis 36:28) gave his short name to the land of Oz (in Hebrew, Utz), somewhere over the rainbow. Jobab (Genesis 36:34) is the name of the cat in the Hebrew version of the Adventures of Pinocchio. Who does not know Husham (Genesis 36:34) which in modern Hebrew means “a fool?” However, Mehetabel daughter of Matred daughter of Me-zahab (Genesis 36:39) has not yet found her place in literature, but her name calls out for it. Someone should step in and popularize her name.
(Editor’s note: The Israeli author is of course not aware of the famous duo Archy and Mehitabel, or more accurately archy and mehitabel, a cockroach and an alley cat, created by Don Marquis in 1916, stars of his newspaper column for several decades, and at least three subsequent books).
Of course this is a mistake. Behind each list is a story, even if requires a little imagination to reconstruct it or invent it. Do the copper mines in southern Israel (in Timna, see Genesis 36:22) immortalize a concubine? Was Ada, the wife of Esau, named after one of Lamech's two wives? What perfume did Basemath (bosem, “perfume”) use?
The super-power of the Edomite clan leaders lies in the decision to include their long and strange list within our sacred canon. From that moment on, history and memory and literature began to play with these characters. Due to this playful literary creativity, a pointless list has become a collection of stations in a timeless road map: Oholibamah (Genesis 36:2) Esau's wife winks at us in a poem by Rabbi Judah Halevi (entitled “Young Dove, You Carried Her”) where the name Oholibamah appears three times but creatively divided to yield new meaning. Halevi writes: “V’Oholi-Bamah L’O, V’Oholiva Ma…” whose English translation does not capture or convey the play on words: “My tent is the place of celebration, therein shrills the litany of words! I ask where is my refuge in this world! Is He still with me.”
Likewise, in the title book of Uri Zvi Greenberg's poems we meet an anonymous clan leader named Saul of Rehoboth-on-the-river (Genesis 36:37). Utz (Genesis 36:28) gave his short name to the land of Oz (in Hebrew, Utz), somewhere over the rainbow. Jobab (Genesis 36:34) is the name of the cat in the Hebrew version of the Adventures of Pinocchio. Who does not know Husham (Genesis 36:34) which in modern Hebrew means “a fool?” However, Mehetabel daughter of Matred daughter of Me-zahab (Genesis 36:39) has not yet found her place in literature, but her name calls out for it. Someone should step in and popularize her name.
(Editor’s note: The Israeli author is of course not aware of the famous duo Archy and Mehitabel, or more accurately archy and mehitabel, a cockroach and an alley cat, created by Don Marquis in 1916, stars of his newspaper column for several decades, and at least three subsequent books).
Hayuta Deutsch is a writer for Makor Rishon newspaper.
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