Genesis 36:5

Summary

The verse reports that Oholibamah bore three sons to Esau — Jeush, Jalam, and Korah — and closes the list by identifying these three as the sons born to Esau while he lived in the land of Canaan.

Key words

• yal.dah ("she bore", H3205) — qal perfect, third person feminine singular, marking a completed act performed by the subject (Oholibamah) directly.
• 'et- (H0853) — the direct object marker, repeated three times before each son's name, showing that Jeush, Jalam, and Korah are each individually marked as objects of the verb "she bore," not merely listed in apposition.
• bene ("sons of", H1121A) — masculine plural noun in construct state, linking directly to 'Esav, forming the phrase "sons of Esau."
• yulledu ("they were born", H3205) — same root as yaledah but in pual perfect (intensive passive), third person plural: here the sons are the grammatical subject, receiving the action of birth rather than performing it.
• 'asher ("who", H0834A) — relative particle introducing the clause that specifies where the birth took place, connecting the summary statement back to the preceding list.

What the text says

The verse divides into two clauses built on the same verbal root y-l-d ("to bear/be born", H3205) but in different stems, producing a grammatical shift in perspective. The first clause uses the qal perfect yaledah ("she bore") with Oholibamah as subject and the three sons — Jeush, Jalam, Korah — each individually flagged by the direct object marker 'et. This construction presents the mother as the active agent of each birth, one name at a time.

The second clause reframes the same three individuals as subjects rather than objects, using the pual perfect yulledu ("they were born"), a passive intensive form. Here the sons themselves are grammatically foregrounded, and the action of bearing is presented as something that happened to them, with the agent (implicitly Oholibamah, and by extension Esau as father, indicated by the pronominal suffix lo "to him") pushed into the background via the preposition le + suffix. This second clause is introduced by the demonstrative 'elleh ("these") and the relative 'asher ("who"), functioning as a summarizing statement that closes the genealogical unit: "these are the sons of Esau who were born to him in the land of Canaan." The final phrase be'eretz Kena'an ("in the land of Canaan") anchors the birth geographically, using the construct noun 'eretz ("land of") bound to the place name.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Ὀλιβεμὰ) and Vulgate (Oolibama) both render the mother's name without the initial 'aleph/he element present in the Hebrew 'Oholivamah, giving shorter transliterated forms. The LXX also renders the third son's name as Τόρε rather than a form closer to Qorach, differing from both the Hebrew Qorach and the Vulgate's Core.