What Does Genesis 36:2 Mean?
Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan; Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan; Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite;THE KEY
The Hebrew behind “took” can mean both taking and receiving, while the family lines that follow show the ties surrounding this marriage.
THE MEANING
Your closest bonds sit within networks of kinship that precede and surround the pair. Here, each woman is named through her descent, making family connection part of how she is seen.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that marriage begins between two people without surrounding ties: the verse places each wife within a named family line.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקַּח
wayyiqqach
GROWS FROM
לקח
To take, receive, or acquire.
“took” in this verse is wayyiqqach. The verb commonly means take or receive and also appears in the idiom “take a wife.” Its related noun לֶקַח (leqaḥ, instruction or learning) names what is taken in, giving the root a receptive range alongside the verse’s repeated lines of descent.
ALSO GROWS
lāqaḥ: To take, receive, or acquire.
לָקַח
This verb introduces the marriage, with a range that includes both taking and receiving.
leqaḥ: Instruction or learning.
לֶקַח
This noun shows the root’s reach into what is received and taken in.
עָדָה
ʿĀdāh
GROWS FROM
עדה
To adorn or deck out; as a name, ornament or adornment.
Adah carries the sense of adornment within a verse crowded with names. The name is a word with its own nature, not just a label in the family list.
ALSO GROWS
ʿădî: Ornament or adornment.
עֲדִי
This noun makes the meaning carried by Adah’s name more visible.
ʿādāh: To adorn or deck oneself.
עָדָה
The verb form connects the name’s sense of ornament to an act of adorning.
THE PATTERN
Names and descent locate a person within a web of nature and kinship.
And the first came out red, all over, like a cloak of hair; and they called his name Esau.And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, the one drawn out, and she said, Because from the waters I drew him out.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.THE THREAD
And the first came out red, all over, like a cloak of hair; and they called his name Esau.Genesis 25:25 ties Esau’s name to what is visible in his body; Genesis 36:2 places that named person within the family lines formed through his wives. Together, the verses show name and kinship as two parts of how a person is located.
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