Someone emailed and asked:
The seed / sons of Esau of were dukes. Why are they called dukes?
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My reply/comment:
Good question.
The Hebrew word is an odd word in its literal meaning, but it can mean “governor” or “captain”.
#441 al-LOOF [From #502]; “familiar; a friend, also gentle; hence a bullock (as being tame; applied, although masculine, to a cow); and so a chieftain (as notable like neat cattle):—captain, duke, (chief) friend, governor, guide, ox.”
[#502 aw-LOF A primitive root, “to associate with; hence to learn (and causatively to teach):—learn, teach, utter.”]
In Anglo-Saxon history, a Duke is one of the nearest in line to be king, under a prince. However, the main meaning, I believe, in a Duke, is not only of a royal ruler, but also one who is a military leader, so “champion” or “chieftain” is also close in meaning to Duke, but of course with the element of royal descent.
In Esau’s case, any notion of “royalty” was self-assumed and self-claimed and imposed on his “subjects” (after Esau exterminated his Horite-Hivite Canaanite in-laws). Edom eventually had a king, which probably resulted from one of the Dukes claiming supremacy over the others, as did Esau, “by right of might”.
In fact, the Edomite-Canaanites and other Canaanites had kings long before Israel did, and that was a double insult to God, in that, not only did they reject God as their ruler, but they wanted to be like the vile Canaanite nations around them! nations so vile in all their perversions (the product of their very nature) that God commanded their utter destruction and forever forbade all intermarriage, cooperation, treaties, seeking their peace or prosperity forever. All their abominations were later perfected and distilled into the Talmud, and these very people are the ones responsible for these very perversions being injected and bred into Christendom, which now overruns Christendom and threatens its very existence. When God’s people want to be like the alien heathen around them—learning every pagan practice, vice, and perversion, including homosexuality—it is then that God gives up to destruction the masses of His people, that the chaff may be winnowed from the wheat.
All these perversions, including homosexuality, were rampant among the Canaanites—who eventually in 126 b.c. feigned conversion and entered the land of Israel en masse, adopted Israelite customs (names, circumcision, Sabbaths, dietary laws—when it suited them), and unlawfully intermarried with Israel, and eventually stole true Israel’s name and ever since have masqueraded as God’s people; the vast majority of true Israel having been taken into captivity and then scattered throughout the world, where they appeared as Jutes (Judah), Danes (Dan), Goths (Gad, which in Hebrew is actually Gawd and means to invade or overcome), Gauls (from Hebrew, gawal, “to be the next of kin, kinsman redeemer, avenger of blood”), British (“people of the Covenant”) Saxons / Sakasuna / Sacae / Saka (“sons of Isaac”), Scots / Scythians (from Succuth, “tent dwellers”), etc.
[See my books, God’s Chosen People... and Uncovering the Mysteries of Your Hidden Inheritance.]
Esau of course was Jacob’s brother, (sons of Isaac, grandsons of Abraham). Esau despised his heritage and God, violated God’s Command and married 2 Canaanite women (a Seirite-Horite-Hivite and a Hittite) and their descendents became Edomites (and a sub-tribe called Amalekites), who were and are the worst enemies of true Israel.
Edom was Esau’s nickname, which means, “red (beans)” (the Bolsheviks, who descended from him, chose this name as a nickname, though they chose it to signify the white Christian blood they would shed)—since Esau so disesteemed his birthright that he willingly sold it for a bowl of beans that Jacob was cooking. Would you trade $100,000 for a Big Mac? The birthright meant the inheritance of the firstborn, which was a double-share of the inheritance. Since Jacob and Esau were Isaac’s only sons, the inheritance was then split 3 ways and Jacob got 2 shares. This was a sizeable amount of wealth, since Abraham was wealthy and Isaac inherited everything from Abraham.
The Hebrew word Edom is actually related to the Hebrew word Adam, which means “rosy, to blush or flush, ruddy”. However, that is the role of counterfeits, to blend in and deceive.
[See my What Was the Mark that God Placed on Cain...? for a detailed Esauology and also Cainology, showing that the line of Cain was named nearly identically with the line of Seth; the true Adamic line. That’s also why when they move among us, aliens begin to name their children with the names of our people, and even change their last names to be like ours; to hide their identity. It is a hate crime against us. While imitation is the highest form of flattery, it can also be called plagiarism and counterfeiting. See also my S.T.E.C. Who Was the Serpent in the Garden? which continues the history back in time that was begun in What Was the Mark...?, in tracing the Canaanites back to Cain.]
However, Esau derived his name, not because he was ruddy (which he was), but the name red was derived from his contempt for his heritage, in that he sold his birthright for a bowl of red beans. How more could he have despised his birthright? —his birthright, in his mind, was as contemptible to him, and as meaningless as the flatulence that those beans gave him! Jacob and Esau were not teenagers. This was not a rash adolescent decision. After this time Esau married his Canaanite wives at the age of 40. We don’t know how much time transpired in between. Certainly he could have asked his mother to make him something to eat; he could have found fruit growing on a tree; he could have asked his Canaanite “girlfriends” (or harlots) for something to eat. The “cunning hunter” could have dealt with a little hunger and gone out and caught something. Maybe he had a bad day of hunting and did not feel like going back out and hunting or even catching a fish; surely they had fowl and sheep and goats on the farm. Regardless, he valued his birthright so little it was not even worth any thought or effort to preserve; it was not even a “last resort”, it was agreed to out of convenience. He would not have died without that bowl of beans.
Esau’s Canaanite descendents, Edomites (Jewry, who were force “converted” by John Hyrcanus, the Maccabee leader in 126 b.c., and at that time adopted Israelite custom, and infiltrated the land of Israel (the land already being a mixed multitude since the pagan kings, after deporting true Israel, moved in many corrupt peoples to fill the land—like they are doing today, to Christendom—to forever weaken it by destroying its people, and veritable racial and national identity. Rome then set up the Herods as “puppet kings” (not true kings of Israel), since the Herods were Idumeans (the Greek word for Edomite); God had forbidden (Deuteronomy 17:15) setting up any ruler over Israel that was not a kinsmen (and mongrels were not kinsmen, even if part Israelite; God commanded bastards to be sent away). Rome established the Herods as puppet-kings because Rome knew that the greedy herods were loyal only to their own wealth and ego—and thus Rome knew that they could be trusted to be loyal to Rome and not Israel or Israel’s God or Law.
The Herods then polluted the priesthood and installed Edomites as priests, and made the lowest of priests to be high priests (likewise, ones they knew that they could control). Eventually, after the apostolic period, the Edomites took over entirely and have masqueraded as God’s people; and the majority of those who are God's people (the Anglo-Saxon and related peoples of Christendom) are in blindness and think God’s very enemies are His chosen people.
Esau was a ruthless warlord. Even when Esau went to meet Jacob upon Jacob’s return from Padan-aram (after 20 years), in the plateau highlands of northern Syria, Jacob having fled to escape Esau’s wrath (Esau having threatened to kill Jacob), Esau travelled with an army of 400 men, and that is why Jacob was afraid. Had Jacob not humbled himself before God that night, God may not have changed Esau’s heart to be forgiving and affectionate toward his brother. Possibly Esau’s intentions had been murderous, but God changed his heart en route—not to repent of his wickedness and ask God for forgiveness and turn from his sin and obey the morality that God commanded (that notion is entirely absent from Scripture and any minister or Bible teacher who suggest such is a spiritual storyteller and is shameful), but God changed Esau solely in regard to his bitterness and hatred for his brother.
[For a play-by-play coverage of this story, and events from the time of the Call of Abraham to the time that Israel went down into Egypt, see my S.T.E.C. on Genesis / Judges.]
Esau later murdered his own in-laws and established his sons as Dukes, therefore, those Dukes were the leaders of the imposed defacto government upon a conquered people. In light of Esau’s nature and actions, since he was essentially a warlord, his sons / grandsons were warlords themselves, under him, each governing / keeping subdued some region in Edom / Seir.
[See also my charts, The Peoples of the Bible and A Coordinated Chronological Table of the Patriarchs.]
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