The Book of Jasher (10:28, cf. Gen. 36:20, 1 Chron. 1:38) tells us that Seir (שעיר
was the son of Hur, son of Hivi, son of Canaan. The Edomites are repeatedly said to dwell in the country of
Seir (for instance Gen. 36:8-9, Deut. 2:12, 2:22) and to have intermarried with the Hurites/Horites/Hivites, specifically the descendants of Seir and his descendant
Anah (Gen. 36:2, 36:20-24).
The English-language Bible usually renders term “
Seirim” (שעירים, see Isa. 13:21, 23:14, 2 Chron. 11:15) as “
Satyr” and other such terms, but doesn’t Seirim simply mean Seirites, or sons of Seir, the descendant of Canaan ?
We see in Jasher 36:28-35, that
Anah,
the son of Seir, lived near to a wilderness inhabited by some strange creatures indeed. Jasher describes them thus:
“from their middle downward, [they] were in the shape of the children of men, and from their middle upward, some had the likeness of bears, and some the likeness of the keephas, with tails behind them from between their shoulders reaching down to the earth, like the tails of the ducheephath.”
“
Keephas” resembles the Hebrew word for
apes (Strong’s #6971) and like bears, apes have a somewhat man-like appearance, which might be a point of note here (note that the S at the end of “Keephas” may just be the English plural, making it the plural of קֹף which is the exact word for monkey; we do not have the original Hebrew text of Jasher so we cannot know, but the supposition seems realistic). “
Ducheephath” would seem to be the word דוכיפת (an unclean bird mentioned in Lev. 11:19 and Deut. 14:19, translated “
hoopoe” in English Bibles; the tails of the hybrid creatures would then be compared to the tailfeathers of the hoopoe in appearance ).
This story is given an obscure reference in Gen. 36:24.
Interestingly, the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel says that Anah was the first to breed mules, which are also hybrid creatures.
Maybe these Seirim are named for the region, or a general association with the (human) Seirites ?
This would then defend the interpretation of Seirim as some sort of hybrid or monstrous creature, as the context of Isa. 13:21, 23:14 and 2 Chron. 11:15 demands.
The translation “satyr” might be speculative, in that they are never directly described as half-man, half-goat, although it is an surprisingly accurate approximation, given the half-man, half-beast description of Jasher, which had presumably been lost by the time the translation of satyr was put in the Bible.
A similar type of hybrid creature is mentioned in Jasher (61:15), described thus:
“from the middle upward it resembled a man, and from the middle downward it resembled an animal”; however, this centaur-like monster is said to have dwelled in the land of Kittim, identified in Jasher (10:16) as Italy.
SOURCE:
Saturnalia, Satyrs, the Tower of Babel and the Garments of Adam: Questions and Curiosities in the Book of Jasher | The Plan of God
