(5) In the land of Canaan.--We find Esau with a band of armed men in Seir on Jacob's return from Padan-aram, but he still had his home at Hebron with his father until Isaac's death, twenty-two years afterwards. Evidently he had taken Aholibamah home thither, and she had borne him three sons. After Isaac's death the land of Seir had so great attractions for him that he migrated thither with his share of Isaac's wealth, and left Hebron to Jacob, who now moved down thither from the town of Eder, and took possession of the homestead of his fathers. And thus the inheritance of the birthright came finally to Jacob by. Esau's own act, and would doubtless have so come to him; only his father's blessing and the transference to him of the Abrahamic promises would have been given him, not at the time of Isaac's temporary illness, but on his deathbed.

36:1-43 Esau and his descendants. - The registers in this chapter show the faithfulness of God to his promise to Abraham. Esau is here called Edom, that name which kept up the remembrance of his selling his birth-right for a mess of pottage. Esau continued the same profane despiser of heavenly things. In outward prosperity and honour, the children of the covenant are often behind, and those that are out of the covenant get the start. We may suppose it a trial to the faith of God's Israel, to hear of the pomp and power of the kings of Edom, while they were bond-slaves in Egypt; but those that look for great things from God, must be content to wait for them; God's time is the best time. Mount Seir is called the land of their possession. Canaan was at this time only the land of promise. Seir was in the possession of the Edomites. The children of this world have their all in hand, and nothing in hope, Lu 16:25; while the children of God have their all in hope, and next to nothing in hand. But, all things considered, it is beyond compare better to have Canaan in promise, than mount Seir in possession.And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah,.... In this genealogy mention is made of another Korah among the sons of Eliphaz, Genesis 36:16; which Jarchi thinks is the same with this, and takes him to be a bastard, and begotten in incest by Eliphaz, on his father's wife Aholibamah; but Aben Ezra observes, that some are of opinion that there were two Korahs, one the son of Aholibamah, and the other the son of Adah; but he thinks there were but one, which was the son of Aholibamah, and is reckoned among the sons of Eliphaz, because he dwelt among them; or perhaps his mother died when he was little, and Adah brought him up with her sons, and so was reckoned her son; such were the children of Michal, Saul's daughter:

these are the sons of Esau, which were born to him in the land of Canaan; and we do not read of any born to him elsewhere; so that of all his wives, which some think were four, others five, he had but five sons; what daughters he had is not related, though from Genesis 36:6, it appears he had some.