The original inhabitants of Seir, before Edom — 'the sons of Seir the Horite, the inhabitants of the land' (36:20), catalogued here alongside Esau's line. The name is usually tied to chor, 'cave,' so the traditional gloss is 'cave-dwellers' (some scholars instead connect them with the Hurrians of the wider ancient Near East). Genesis does not pretend Edom rose from empty land: Deuteronomy says plainly that 'the Horites lived in Seir formerly, but the sons of Esau dispossessed them… and dwelt in their place' (Deuteronomy 2:12) — the same honesty the Bible will later turn on the peoples Israel itself displaces. One Horite clan, Anah, is remembered for a desert find, the yemim (hot springs?) — a rare word no one can quite translate (36:24).