There is a parallel passage to this in I Chronicles 1:36, 37. Both describe what became of Esau and the Edomites. Esau’s Sons and Grandsons became the Fathers of Tribes. It is important to remember that individual names become clans then tribes and later nations in the Bible. Any of these entities might still be referred to by the progenitor’s name. Through them he became the father of Edom, i.e., the founder of the Edomite nation on the mountains of Seir. Mount Seir is the mountainous region between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aquaba, the northern half of which is called Jebâl (Gebalene) by the Arabs, the southern half, Sheri.
The Tribe-Princes Who Descended from Esau—אַלּוּפִים aloofeem was the distinguishing title of the Edomite and Horite phylarchs (Ancient title for military men who chose rulers), and it is only incidentally that it is applied to Jewish heads of tribes in Zechariah 9:7, and 12:5. It is probably derived from אֶלֶף elef or אֲלָפִים, aloofeem equivalent to מִשְׁפָּחֹות, michpachot, families (1 Samuel 10:19; Micah 5:2), the heads of the families, i.e., of the principal divisions, of the tribe. The names of these aloofeem are not names of places, but of persons. They are identical with those of the previous list except that there are now two Korahs, one a grandson who appears as part of the lineage of Eliphaz, and the other a son as before.
