Esau
Esau, from the Hebrew word pronounced ay-sawv, meaning rough or hairy, was the grandson of Abraham and Sarah, the slightly older twin son of Isaac and Rebekah. Also known as Edom, meaning red, he and Jacob formed one of the fiercest cases of sibling rivalry in all Bible History. All religious writings include Esau the hairy twin.

Jacob and Esau: The struggle between Jacob and Esau began right from their conception and birth:

The Blessing: "And Isaac entreated (asked earnestly) the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she (Rebekah) went to inquire of The Lord. And The Lord said unto her, "Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger." And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were (fraternal) twins in her womb. And the first twin came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them." (Genesis 25: 19-34 KJV= King James Version, http://www.dltk-bible.com/kjv/jacob_and_esau.htm)

Referring to the fraternal twin sons of Isaac & Rebekah, the passages in the Christian Bible; the LDS/Book of Mormon, the Catholic Bible, the Torah and the Koran are essentially the same, that is: Esau was born naturally covered in hair, Jacob was born smooth skinned, hairless from the same Jewish mother on the same day. There have always been giants, fossil records show that and there have always been hair-covered people. That critics scoff at this notion, isn't scriptural.

LDS/Book of Mormon: The First Book of Moses Called Genesis Chapter 27: 11
"...and Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, "Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man..."

Koran: 28 GENESIS 27:11
“My brother Esau is a hairy man,” Jacob reminded her. "And I am not."
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Although (fraternal) twins, Jacob and Esau were very different in appearance and personality i.e. Esau was a "hairy man" while Jacob was a "smooth man" (Genesis 27:11 KJV). They were also each a favorite of one parent, a sure formula for trouble.

"And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. -And Isaac, his father...loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah, their mother loved Jacob." (Genesis 25:27-28)

Then came the day that Esau foolishly sold his birthright to Jacob for that now-infamous pottage:

"And Jacob sod pottage (grew vegetables/lentils for a creamy stew): and Esau came from the field and he was faint: And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright." (Genesis 25:29-34 KJV)

By means of a deceptive scheme set up by Rebekah, Jacob next managed to get Esau's blessing from the nearly-blind Isaac, then completing the transfer of the rights of the firstborn from Esau to Jacob (Genesis 27:1-40). Esau's response was a plan to kill Jacob, which was prevented when Rebekah heard of it and sent Jacob away to live with her brother Laban. (see Jacob and Laban).

Esau's family tensions continued with his marriages:

"And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife." (Genesis 28:8-9 KJV)

The reconciliation between Jacob and Esau occurred 30 years later upon Jacob's return to the land that God intended for Israel and his descendants (Genesis chapters 33 and 34). About 20 years later, when their father Isaac died, the two brothers buried him in Hebron. That may have been the last that Jacob and Esau ever saw of each other.

"And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, being old and full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him" (Genesis 35:29 KJV)

Esau then left the God-commanded land of Israel and established himself as a powerful nation in the land of Edom (Genesis 36:1-43).

Was Esau the father of the Edomites? (Genesis 36:43)

The Edomite people, dwellers of the land of Edom located between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea are known from history to have been a Semitic-speaking tribal group inhabiting the Negev Desert and the Aravah valley of what is now southern Israel and Jordan. (Semitic: A group of languages belonging to the Afro-Asiatic family and spoken in North Africa and southwestern Asia. It includes Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Maltese and Amharic.)

According to Genesis, Esau's descendents were said to have settled in this land after displacing the Horites. The reddish sandstone of the region may be an alternative explanation for the nation's name to that found in Genesis.

The Edomites may have been connected with the Shasu and Shutu, nomadic raiders mentioned in Egyptian sources. Indeed, a letter from an Egyptian scribe at a border fortress in the Wadi Tumilat during the reign of Merneptah reports movement of nomadic "shasu-tribes of Edom" to watering holes in Egyptian territory. (Redford, Egypt, Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times, Princeton Univ. Press, 1992. p.228, 318.)

The Jewish Text reads in part:
"Contrary to the promise of Isaac that Esau's dwelling would be of the fatness of the earth and of the dew of heaven (Gen. xxvii. 39), Edom was a rocky and calcareous country. Esau is described as a man who subsisted by hunting (Gen. xxv. 27 et passim), as his descendants, the Edomites, did, living amid rocky fastnesses and mountain heights (Jer. xlix. 16; Obad. 3, 4). The name "Mount Seir" or "Mount of Esau" shows that Edom was a mountainous country and therefore it was called by later writers "Gebalene" (the mountainous)."

The mention of the Edomites being Esau's decendents, assures us that the line of hairy people continued, to what degree, we don't know.

From the Jewish Text:

Rulers of Edom
According to the Bible, immediately after Isaac's death Esau settled in Mount Seir (Gen. xxxvi. 6, 8), where he had lived before (Gen. xxxii. 3). The Edomites soon became powerful enough to extirpate the Horites, the former inhabitants of the country (Dent. ii. 12), whose ways of life they adopted. As among the Horites, each tribe was ruled by a prince or chief whose position resembled probably that of an Arab sheik (Gen. xxxvi. 15-19, 29-30). Later the Edomites organized themselvesinto a kingdom, and had had eight kings when the first king in Israel began his reign (ib. xxxvi. 31-39). However, a list of chiefs given after that of the kings (ib. xxxvi. 40-43) shows that subordinate chiefs ruled under the sovereignty of the king. In the time of Moses both chiefs and king are mentioned (Ex. xv. 15; Num. xx. 14). When the King of Edom refused to allow the children of Israel to pass through his land on their way to the land of Canaan the Israelites were expressly ordered not to wage war upon the Edomites, but to go round their country (Num. xx. 14-21; Deut. ii. 4-6). Neither did the King of Edom attempt hostilities against the Israelites, though he prepared to resist aggression.

Nothing further is heard of the Edomites until their defeat by Saul four hundred years later (I Sam. xiv. 47); forty years later David overthrew the Edomites in the "valley of salt," and his general Joab slew all their males (II Sam. viii. 13, 14; I Kings xi. 15, 16).

In the time of Nebuchadnezzar the Edomites took an active part in the plunder of Jerusalem and in the slaughter of the Jews (Ps. cxxxvii. 7; Obad. 11, 13, 14). It is on account of these cruelties that Edom was so violently denounced by the Prophets (Isa. xxxiv. 5-8; Jer. xlix. 7-22; Obad. passim).

Use of Name.

The name "Edom" is used by the Talmudists for the Roman empire and they applied to Rome every passage of the Bible referring to Edom or to Esau.

In Leviticus Rabbah (xiii.) Rome, under the name of "Edom," is compared to a boar, and the symbolic name "Seir" was used by the poets of the Middle Ages not only for Rome (comp. Ecclus. 1. 26, Hebr.), but also for Christianity (Zunz, "Literaturgesch." p. 620).

On this account the word "Edom" was often expunged by the censor and another name substituted (Popper, "Censorship of Hebrew Books," p. 58).

In place of "Edom," the word "Ḥazir" (swine) was occasionally used, perhaps as a mere term of reproach (but see Epstein, "Beiträge zur Jüd. Alterthumskunde," p. 35). In Midrash Tanḥuma Bereshit, Hadrian is called "the King of Edom."

The Talmudists, however, made an exception in favor of Antoninus Pius, whom they assured would attain paradise, because he had not acted in the manner of Esau ('Ab. Zarah 10b).

Abodah Zarah 10a, however, explaining Obadiah, verse 2, says that Edom had neither written nor spoken language. This is inconsistent with its application to Rome.

The name "Teman" is originally the name of a tribe and then of a district of the Edomites.

In Biblical genealogy it is the name of the eldest son of Eliphaz, the first-born of Esau, and one of the "dukes" of Edom (Gen. xxxvi. 11, 15, 42; I Chron. i. 36, 53).

The genealogy here noted proves that Teman was one of the most important of the Edomite tribes, and this is confirmed by the fact that "Teman" is used as a synonym for Edom itself (Amos i. 12; Obad. 9; comp. Jer. xlix. 20, 22; Hab. iii. 3).

The Temanites were famed for their wisdom (Jer. xlix. 7; Baruch iii. 22); Eliphaz, the oldest and wisest of the friends of Job, is described as a member of this tribe (Job ii. 11 et passim).

Teman is referred to in Obad. 9 as a part of the mount of Esau, while Amos i. 12 mentions it in connection with the Edomitic "palaces of Bozrah"; Ezek. xxv. 13 speaks of it in contrast to the southern boundary Dedan.

Eliphaz is Esau's first born son:

Meaning: God his strength

One of Job's "three friends" who visited him in his affliction (4:1). He was a "Temanite", i.e., a native of Teman, in Idumea. He first enters into debate with Job.
Eliphaz's language is uniformly more delicate and gentle than that of the other two, although he imputes to Job special sins as the cause of his present sufferings.

A son of Esau by his wife Adah, and father of several Edomitish tribes (Gen. 36:4, 10, 11, 16).

The lineage of Esau, the hairy man and his children has always been there.
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Comments:
"If you favor this explanation, shooting them IS murder one."

"It is easier to believe they are apes if your knowledge of the Bible is limited or shaded by other the religious or scientific doctrines. But the hair covered people have been around since Biblical times, 2000 years that we know of, so thank you for your broad coverage of this subject." JTT, May 1996

"The theory of Cain as a Sasquatch is not applicable. He was not born a hairy man. He is not listed among the giants in the Bible either. Only the descendents of Esau were hairy men of unusual height...giants."


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