(51) Hadad died also.--Rather, And Hadad died, and there were (or arose) chiliarchs of Edom, the chiliarch of Timnah, the chiliarch of Aliah, &c. This appears to state that Hadad was the last king of Edom, and that after his death the country was governed by the heads of the various clans or tribes, without any central authority. In Genesis 36:40, the sentence, "And Hadad died," is wanting, and the transition from the kings to the chiliarchs is thus effected: "And these are the names of the chiliarchs of Esau, after their clans, after their places, by their names: the chiliarch of Timnah," &c. The chiliarchs ('all-phim, from 'eleph, a thousand) were the heads of the thousands or clans (mishpehoth) of Edom (Genesis 36:40). (See Note on 1Chronicles 14:1.) The names in these verses are not personal, but tribal and local, as the conclusion of the account in Genesis 36:43 indicates: "These are the chiliarchs of Edom, after their seats, in the land of their domain." Comp. the names of the sons of Esau and Seir (1Chronicles 1:35-42). This makes it clear that Timnah and Aholibamah were towns. The king of Edom is often mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament. (See Numbers 20:14; Amos 2:1-8 th cent. B.C. ; 2Kings 3:9 - 9th cent.) According to Ewald (Hist. p. 46), the chieftains of Edom follow the list of kings, "as if David had already vanquished the last king of Edom, and put it under" merely tribal government, in subordination to himself. "The Hadad who fled very young to Egypt at David's conquest (1Kings 11:14-22) may have been grandson of Hadad, the last king."

Verses 51-54. - H. LIST OF ELEVEN DUKES OF EDOM. These, the remaining verses of ch. 1, appear to give a list of eleven dukes of Edom, emphasized apparently as "the dukes of Edom," as though there were none before or after them. But see Genesis 36:15, 41, 43, the study of which can scarcely leave a doubt on the mind that this list is not one of persons but of places; e.g. "the duke" of the city, or region of "Timnah," and so on. The places were dukedoms. The names of these verses, in both Authorized Version and Hebrew text, are an exact counterpart of those found in Genesis 36:40-43, except that Aliah here (so Allan, ver. 40) stands for Alvah in Genesis. In the Septuagint we have Golada, Elibamas, and Babsar here, for Gola, Olibemas, and Mazar there. Thus this first chapter contains those genealogical tables which concern the patriarchs from Adam up to Israel, spanning a stretch of some two thousand three hundred years, and embracing also tables of Edom and certain of the descendants of Edom up to the period of kings. The chapter contains not a single instance of a remark that could be described as of a moral, religious, or didactic kind. Yet not a little is to be learnt sometimes, not a little suggested, from omission and solemn silence as well as from speech; no more notable instance of which could perhaps be given, when we take into account time, place, and circumstances, than that already alluded to in the omissions involved in the following of the name of Seth upon that of Adam. The genealogies of this chapter, with their parallels in Genesis, are notable also for standing unique in all the world's writing, and far over all the world's mythology, for retracing the pedigree of the wide family of men, and especially of the now scattered family of the Jew, to its original. From the time of the close of our Chronicle genealogies, supplemented by the earliest of the New Testament, no similarly comprehensive but useful, ambitious but deliberately designed and successfully executed enterprise has been attempted. And as Matthew Henry has well said, since Christ came, the Jews have lost all their genealogies, even the most sacred of them, "the building is reared, the scaffold is removed; the Seed is come, the line that led to him is broken off."

28-54 The genealogy is from hence confined to the posterity of Abraham. Let us take occasion from reading these lists of names, to think of the multitudes that have gone through this world, have done their parts in it, and then quitted it. As one generation, even of sinful men, passes away, another comes. Ec 1:4; Nu 32:14, and will do so while the earth remains. Short is our passage through time into eternity. May we be distinguished as the Lord's people.Now these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom,.... Which had its name from Esau, who was so called, Genesis 25:30. From hence, to the end of the chapter, an account is given of the kings and dukes of Edom, in the same order as in Genesis 30:31.