The Torah completes the “scroll of Yitzchak” by first delineating the descendants of his older son Esav:
And these are the generations of Esav, who is Edom. Esav had taken his wives from the daughters of Canaan: Adah, the daughter of Eilon the Hittite, and Oholivama, daughter of Anah, daughter of Tziv’on the Chivvite and Basmot, daughter of Yishmael, sister of Nevayot (Bereishit 36:1-3).

Rashi comments on 37:1 that the Torah dispenses summarily with Esav and his descendants so it can focus at length on its more important topic: the family of Yaakov.

Esav has transgressed Avraham’s forcefully pronounced edict (24:2-9), that his offspring are not to marry women from the local idolaters. His marriage to Machlot, a daughter of Yishmael, without divorcing his other wives, was mere whitewashing (Rashi on 28:9). Therefore, Esav lost his entitlement to the firstborn’s birthright.

The first of Esav’s children were born in Canaan. Then:
And Esav took his wives and his sons and his daughters, and all the souls of his house, and his livestock, and all his animals, and all his acquisitions which he had gained in the land of Canaan, and he went into land from before Yaakov his brother. Because their possessions were too great for them to dwell together, and the land of their sojourning was not able to bear them, due to their livestock. And Esav settled in Mount Se’ir; Esav, he is Edom (36:6-8).

Esav’s departure from Canaan — aside from economic considerations — may have been prompted by Yitzchak’s blessing that Esav will release himself from Yaakov’s domination by leaving:
And it will be, when you depart, then you will break his yoke from upon your neck (27:40; according to R. Yehudah HeChasid’s interpretation).

Ramban (on 36:6) further explains the words and he went into land:
“Esav went to Se’ir in the days of the chieftains of the Chorites, the inhabitants of the land (36:20), and became a lord with a following of four hundred men, while his children and family remained in the land of Canaan…And after his brother returned to the land of Canaan he vacated before his coming for he knew that the land of Canaan was the inheritance of his brother which his father had given him in his blessing. So he took his sons . . . and all the souls of his house — a multitude of people — and went to Se’ir to settle there.“

In his comments to Devarim 2:10, Ramban states that Chivvi is identical with Chori, who is a son of Canaan (based on Bereishit 10:17). And the original person named Se’ir is a Chorite (36:20),

The Chorites originated in an area familiar to the Patriarchs, corresponding to the region of modern-day Kurdistan, Turkey and Armenia, from the Van Sea to the Euphrates, as far west as the Nur Draglari mountains, and southward to the Transjordan. Even Pharaoh Merneptah (13th cent. BCE) refers to Canaan as “the land of Churu.”

Se’ir also refers to the area east of the Arava, south of the Dead Sea until Eilat (see Devarim 2:4-8; Yehoshua 24:4):
and the Chorite upon their mountain Se’ir, as far as the Plain of Paran next to the wilderness (Bereishit 14:6).

Se’ir means “goat,” as well as “woodlands” (see Rashi on Shoftim 3:26). After Yaakov returned this was where the children of Esav, the nation of Edom, settled.

In addition to Edom being a sobriquet for Esav (based on the incident of the “red, red” lentil stew in Bereishit 25:29-34), and the name of the nation he founds, it is also the name of his land, which is reddish rock (see Melachim II 3:22). His land suits him: “Esav is ruddy . . . his land is ruddy” (Bereishit Rabba 63:30).

Through Esav’s marriage to Oholivama, daughter of Anah, daughter of Tziv’on the Chivvite, and his son Eliphaz’s taking of Timna as concubine (36:11-12, 20, 22), Edom unites with Se’ir/Chorite/Chivvite. The merger is so complete that the descendants of Se’ir are always listed together with the descendants of Esav (36:20-30; Divrei HaYamim I 1:38-42)!

Later, while the children of Israel would be in Egypt, the children of Esav would annihilate the original inhabitants of Se’ir, as Moshe tells his people:
And in Se’ir the Chorites dwelled previously, and the children of Esav drove them away from before themselves and dwelled in their place, as Israel did to the Land of its inheritance, which Hashem gave them (Devarim 2:12).
This land was intended for Avraham, as one of the ten nations (Bereishit 15:19-21). Thus, Ramban explains:
“The children of Esav who are of the seed of Avraham succeeded them and dwelled in their stead by a miraculous event. The Chorites were a populous nation in their land and the children of Esav came to dwell there and overpowered them just as Israel did to the remaining nations [in the land that was] promised to Avraham, that G-d gave them in His great power. Thus G-d divided [the lands of] all these [ten] nations among the seed of Abraham ¯ one to Esav, and the balance to Israel who was the firstborn son . . . “

The settlement of Esav — and he went into land . . . and the land of their sojourning . . . And Esav settled in Mount Se’ir — thus stands in stark contrast to Yaakov’s settlement:
And Yaakov settled in the land of the sojourning of his fathers, in the land of Canaan (37:1).

Both of them take their rightful place in their land, thus fulfilling Hashem’s design, and both of them eventually supplant the original inhabitants. But Esav adopts Se’ir’s tribal organization, and absorbs their incestuous value-system, becoming indistinguishable from them.

But woe to Yaakov if he would follow a similar path! [Imagine what would have happened if Yaakov and his sons had acquiesced to Shechem’s plan to become one nation (34:22)!]

In fulfilling his Divine destiny, Yaakov must beware not to imitate the very people he will conquer.