Genesis Chapter 36 verse 31 Holy Bible
And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.
read chapter 36 in ASV
And these are the kings who were ruling in the land of Edom before there was any king over the children of Israel.
read chapter 36 in BBE
And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned a king over the children of Israel.
read chapter 36 in DARBY
And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.
read chapter 36 in KJV
And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.
read chapter 36 in WBT
These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the children of Israel.
read chapter 36 in WEB
And these `are' the kings who have reigned in the land of Edom before the reigning of a king over the sons of Israel.
read chapter 36 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 31. - And these (which follow) are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any (literally, before the reigning of a) king over (or, to) the children of Israel. 1. The reference to Israelitish kings in this place has been explained as an evidence of post-Mosaic authorship (Le Clerc, Bleek, Ewald, Bohlen, et alii), or at least as a later interpolation from 1 Chronicles 1:43 (Kennicott, A. Clarke, Lange), but is sufficiently accounted for by remembering that in Genesis 35:11 kings had been promised to Jacob, while the blessing pronounced on Esau (Genesis 27:40) implied that in his line also should arise governors, the historian being understood to say that though the promised kings had not yet arisen in the line of Jacob, the house of Esau had attained at a somewhat early period to political importance (Calvin, Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Keil, Kalisch, Gerlach, Havernick, and others). 2. The difficulty of finding room for the dukes (seven, four and three, all grandsons of Esau, vers. 15-19), the kings (eight in number, vers. 32-39), and again the dukes (in all eleven, vers. 40-43), that intervened between Esau and Moses disappears if the kings and dukes existed contemporaneously, of which Exodus 15:15, as compared with Numbers 20:14, affords probable evidence. 3. As to the character of the Edomitish kings, it is apparent that it was not a hereditary monarchy, since in no case does the son succeed the father, but an elective sovereignty, the kings being chosen by the dukes, alluphim, or phylarchs (Keil, Hengstenberg, Kalisch, Gerlach), though the idea of successive usurpations (Lange) is not without a measure of probability.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(31) The kings.--In the triumphal song of Moses on the Red Sea we still read of "dukes of Edom" (Exodus 15:15; but when Israel had reached the borders of their land, we find that Edom had then a king (Numbers 20:14). But in the list given here, no king succeeds his father, and probably these were petty monarchs, who sprang up in various parts of the country during a long period of civil war, in which the Horites were finally as completely conquered as were the Canaanites in Palestine under the heavy hands of Saul and Solomon. In the time of the dukes, there were also Horite dukes of the race of Seir, ruling districts mixed up apparently with those governed by the descendants of Esau. But all these now disappear.
