Genesis 36–38

The Descendants of Esau

36These are the descendants of Esau, also called Edom. ^2*Esau married Canaanite women: Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite; Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah son^r of Zibeon the Hivite; ^3*and Basemath, the daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth. ⁴Adah bore Eliphaz; Basemath bore Reuel; ⁵and Oholibamah bore Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. All these sons were born to Esau in the land of Canaan.

⁶Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the people of his house, together with all his livestock and all the possessions he had acquired in the land of Canaan, and went away from his brother Jacob to another land. ⁷He left because the land where he and Jacob were living was not able to support them; they had too much livestock and could no longer stay together. ⁸So Esau lived in the hill country of Edom.

⁹These are the descendants of Esau, the ancestor of the Edomites. ^10–13Esau’s wife Adah bore him one son, Eliphaz, and Eliphaz had five sons: Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz. And by another wife, Timna, he had one more son, Amalek.

Esau’s wife Basemath bore him one son, Reuel, and Reuel had four sons: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah.

¹⁴Esau’s wife Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah son^s of Zibeon, bore him three sons: Jeush, Jalam, and Korah.

¹⁵These are the tribes descended from Esau. Esau’s first son Eliphaz was the ancestor of the following tribes: Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz, ¹⁶Korah, Gatam, and Amalek. These were all descendants of Esau’s wife Adah.

¹⁷Esau’s son Reuel was the ancestor of the following tribes: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah. These were all descendants of Esau’s wife Basemath.

¹⁸The following tribes were descended from Esau by his wife Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah: Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. ¹⁹All these tribes were descended from Esau.

The Descendants of Seir

^20–21The original inhabitants of the land of Edom were divided into tribes which traced their ancestry to the following descendants of Seir, a Horite: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan.

²²Lotan was the ancestor of the clans of Hori and Heman. (Lotan had a sister named Timna.)

²³Shobal was the ancestor of the clans of Alvan, Manahath, Ebal, Shepho, and Onam.

²⁴Zibeon had two sons, Aiah and Anah. (This is the Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness when he was taking care of his father’s donkeys.) ^25–26Anah was the father of Dishon, who was the ancestor of the clans of Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran, and Cheran. Anah also had a daughter named Oholibamah.

²⁷Ezer was the ancestor of the clans of Bilhan, Zaavan, and Akan.

²⁸Dishan was the ancestor of the clans of Uz and Aran.

^29–30These are the Horite tribes in the land of Edom: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan.

The Kings of Edom

^31–39Before there were any kings in Israel, the following kings ruled over the land of Edom in succession:

Bela son of Beor from Dinhabah

Jobab son of Zerah from Bozrah

Husham from the region of Teman

Hadad son of Bedad from Avith (he defeated the Midianites in a battle in the country of Moab)

Samlah from Masrekah Shaul from Rehoboth-on-the-River

Baal Hanan son of Achbor

Hadad from Pau (his wife was Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred and granddaughter of Mezahab)

⁴⁰Esau was the ancestor of the following Edomite tribes: Timna, Alvah, Jetheth, Oholibamah, Elah, Pinon, Kenaz, Teman, Mibzar, Magdiel, and Iram. The area where each of these tribes lived was known by the name of the tribe.

Joseph and His Brothers

37Jacob continued to live in the land of Canaan, where his father had lived, ²and this is the story of Jacob’s family.

Joseph, a young man of seventeen, took care of the sheep and goats with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s concubines. He brought bad reports to his father about what his brothers were doing.

³Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons, because he had been born to him when he was old. He made a long robe with full sleeves^t for him. ⁴When his brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more than he loved them, they hated their brother so much that they would not speak to him in a friendly manner.

⁵One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him even more. ⁶He said, “Listen to the dream I had. ⁷We were all in the field tying up sheaves of wheat, when my sheaf got up and stood up straight. Yours formed a circle round mine and bowed down to it.”

⁸“Do you think you are going to be a king and rule over us?” his brothers asked. So they hated him even more because of his dreams and because of what he said about them.

⁹Then Joseph had another dream and said to his brothers, “I had another dream, in which I saw the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowing down to me.”

¹⁰He also told the dream to his father, and his father scolded him: “What kind of a dream is that? Do you think that your mother, your brothers, and I are going to come and bow down to you?” ^11*Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept thinking about the whole matter.

Joseph Is Sold and Taken to Egypt

¹²One day when Joseph’s brothers had gone to Shechem to take care of their father’s flock, ¹³Jacob said to Joseph, “I want you to go to Shechem, where your brothers are taking care of the flock.”

Joseph answered, “I am ready.”

¹⁴His father said, “Go and see if your brothers are safe and if the flock is all right; then come back and tell me.” So his father sent him on his way from the Valley of Hebron.

Joseph arrived at Shechem ¹⁵and was wandering about in the country when a man saw him and asked him, “What are you looking for?”

¹⁶“I am looking for my brothers, who are taking care of their flock,” he answered. “Can you tell me where they are?”

¹⁷The man said, “They have already left. I heard them say that they were going to Dothan.” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

¹⁸They saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted against him and decided to kill him. ¹⁹They said to one another, “Here comes that dreamer. ²⁰Come on now, let’s kill him and throw his body into one of the dry wells. We can say that a wild animal killed him. Then we will see what becomes of his dreams.”

²¹Reuben heard them and tried to save Joseph. “Let’s not kill him,” he said. ²²“Just throw him into this well in the wilderness, but don’t hurt him.” He said this, planning to save him from them and send him back to his father. ²³When Joseph came up to his brothers, they ripped off his long robe with full sleeves.^{u 24}Then they took him and threw him into the well, which was dry.

²⁵While they were eating, they suddenly saw a group of Ishmaelites travelling from Gilead to Egypt. Their camels were loaded with spices and resins. ²⁶Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain by killing our brother and covering up the murder? ²⁷Let’s sell him to these Ishmaelites. Then we won’t have to hurt him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed, ^28*and when some Midianite traders came by, the brothers^v pulled Joseph out of the well and sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.

²⁹When Reuben came back to the well and found that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes in sorrow. ³⁰He returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is not there! What am I going to do?”

³¹Then they killed a goat and dipped Joseph’s robe in its blood. ³²They took the robe to their father and said, “We found this. Does it belong to your son?”

³³He recognized it and said, “Yes, it is his! Some wild animal has killed him. My son Joseph has been torn to pieces!” ³⁴Jacob tore his clothes in sorrow and put on sackcloth. He mourned for his son a long time. ³⁵All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, “I will go down to the world of the dead still mourning for my son.” So he continued to mourn for his son Joseph.

³⁶Meanwhile, in Egypt, the Midianites had sold Joseph to Potiphar, one of the king’s officers, who was the captain of the palace guard.

Judah and Tamar

38About that time Judah left his brothers and went to stay with a man named Hirah, who was from the town of Adullam. ²There Judah met a young Canaanite woman whose father was named Shua. He married her, ³and she bore him a son, whom he named Er. ⁴She became pregnant again and bore another son and named him Onan. ⁵Again she had a son and named him Shelah. Judah was at Achzib when the boy was born.

⁶For his first son Er, Judah got a wife whose name was Tamar. ⁷Er’s conduct was evil, and it displeased the Lord, so the Lord killed him. ⁸Then Judah said to Er’s brother Onan, “Go and sleep with your brother’s widow. Fulfil your obligation to her as her husband’s brother, so that your brother may have descendants.” ⁹But Onan knew that the children would not belong to him, so whenever he had intercourse with his brother’s widow, he let the semen spill on the ground, so that there would be no children for his brother. ¹⁰What he did displeased the Lord, and the Lord killed him also. ¹¹Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Return to your father’s house and remain a widow until my son Shelah grows up.” He said this because he was afraid that Shelah would be killed, as his brothers had been. So Tamar went back home.

¹²After some time Judah’s wife died. When he had finished the time of mourning, he and his friend Hirah of Adullam went to Timnah, where his sheep were being sheared. ¹³Someone told Tamar that her father-in-law was going to Timnah to shear his sheep. ¹⁴So she changed from the widow’s clothes she had been wearing, covered her face with a veil, and sat down at the entrance to Enaim, a town on the road to Timnah. As she well knew, Judah’s youngest son Shelah had now grown up, and yet she had not been given to him in marriage.

¹⁵When Judah saw her, he thought that she was a prostitute, because she had her face covered. ¹⁶He went over to her at the side of the…