Genesis 27:11 tells us that Se'ir means "rough", or "hairy", and that it yields the word for a billy-goat (Leviticus 4:24 and 16:9), as well as the sacrificial Se'ir Izim (שעיר עזים) of Leviticus 5:6. See also Judges 20:16 and Isaiah 7:20.
Leviticus 17:7 outlaws the worship of the he-goat among the Beney Yisra-El, as does 2 Chronicles 11:15.
Se'ir (שיער) is specifically the male, and Se'irah (שיערה) the "she-goat" or nanny goat. Se'irat (שיערת) is a region of Mount Ephrayim. In Sedra Kedoshim (Leviticus 19:1 to 20:27) we read the Yom Kippur rituals of the scapegoat Azaz-El (אזזל), who is the Age of Aries' equivalent of the scapebull we encountered in the Age of Taurus story of Kayin (Cain): cast out into the Land of Nod (wandering or exile), bearing in the mark on his forehead all the sins of the world (except those of Lamech perhaps)!
Christ is the later - again paschal - archetype of this, and the festival of Passover can thus be shown to have been celebrated long before the Exodus from Egypt; indeed, it was almost certainly this festival that Mosheh wished to celebrate when he asked the Pharaoh for permission, not to leave Mitsrayim for ever (he never did ask for that), but to take his people three days journey into the wilderness for a great festival (Exodus 5:1 ff).
Isaiah 13:21 and 34:14 describe the Se'irim as satyrs who inhabit desert regions, alongside the Tsiyim (צִיִּים) or "wood demons".
Se'ir was the eponymous ancestor of the Se'irites who later become entangled with Keynim (Kenites), Beney Yishma-El and Beney Edom, the discarded elder sons of the three Yisra-Eli patriarchs - Keynim from Kayin (Cain) the son of Adam, Yishma-El from Av-Raham, and Edom being Esav (Esau) the son of Yitschak.
Genesis 36:20 and 30 name Se'ir as a leader of the Beney Chor (Horites); however this is a dynastic title, the name of the goat-god as tribal priest-king, and not of the individual bearer of the title.
The mountainous region of Edom was also named Se'ir; the land stretched from the Dead Sea to the Elamite Gulf, with Jebal in the north and El-Shera in the south. This was Beney Chor territory originally (Genesis 14:6; Deuteronomy 2:12) until Esav came there (Genesis 32:4; 33:14) and his descendants (Deuteronomy 2:4; 2 Chronicles 20:10).
Joshua 15:10 makes the Beney Se'ir a mountain tribe in Yehudah, which probably means an extension of the cult rather than of the tribal territory.
Were they simply goat-breeders who inhabited mountain regions, possibly of Beney Chor origins? Or were they a goat-cult, in the manner of the Greek satyrs who followed Dionysus? Or, indeed, both? Either way the story of Ya'akov as goat-god, dressed for stealing his brother's blessing in Genesis 27, stealing his uncle Lavan's sheep in Genesis 30 (remember that, in those days, though sheep and goats are biologically different animals, it was normal to flock them together, and for the fertility cults surrounding the creatures to overlap and interchange), and hobbling like a billy-goat after his wrestling-match at Penu-El in Genesis 32, all become more interesting.
Genesis 36:20 and 30 name Se'ir as a leader of the Beney Chor (Horites); however this is a dynastic title, the name of the goat-god as tribal priest-king, and not of the individual bearer of the title.
The mountainous region of Edom was also named Se'ir; the land stretched from the Dead Sea to the Elamite Gulf, with Jebal in the north and El-Shera in the south. This was Beney Chor territory originally (Genesis 14:6; Deuteronomy 2:12) until Esav came there (Genesis 32:4; 33:14) and his descendants (Deuteronomy 2:4; 2 Chronicles 20:10).
Joshua 15:10 makes the Beney Se'ir a mountain tribe in Yehudah, which probably means an extension of the cult rather than of the tribal territory.
Were they simply goat-breeders who inhabited mountain regions, possibly of Beney Chor origins? Or were they a goat-cult, in the manner of the Greek satyrs who followed Dionysus? Or, indeed, both? Either way the story of Ya'akov as goat-god, dressed for stealing his brother's blessing in Genesis 27, stealing his uncle Lavan's sheep in Genesis 30 (remember that, in those days, though sheep and goats are biologically different animals, it was normal to flock them together, and for the fertility cults surrounding the creatures to overlap and interchange), and hobbling like a billy-goat after his wrestling-match at Penu-El in Genesis 32, all become more interesting.
The original Ya'akov was himself associated with the goat-god, as we have seen, and both Re'u-Ven and Gad, the tribes that inhabited the regions later occupied by Edom, were also goat-linked. There is thus a very powerful sense of a major pastoral cult focused on a region which includes all the principal descendants of Ya'akov: Ephrayim and Menasheh in the north, Yehudah and Bin-Yamin in the south, Edom on the east bank of the river Yarden (Jordan).
Sa'ar (שער) from the same root, means "storm" or "tempest” and as a verb "to shudder" or "to quiver": the idea of "roughness" applied to the weather rather than to skin. Psalm 50:3; Ezekiel 27:35; Jeremiah 2:12 all use the word in this sense.
Deuteronomy 32:17 explains the connection to shuddering, for it uses the word Se'ir to describe a kind of divine awe, in which Mosheh is so terrified that his hair stands on end - interestingly, it also describes the false gods as Shadim (שֵּׁדִים), which of course links (somewhat unfavourably!) to Av-Raham's name for the deity, El Shadai.
The Deuteronomy 32:17 also confirms what I believe to be the case anyway, that the goat-god was a sky-god (we have seen evidence of this elsewhere and repeatedly; the development of Dionysus again the obvious example), and one aspect of the sky-god is his propensity to storm. In understanding the sacred marriage, this piece of information is extremely vital, with the outcome of the wrestling-match at Penu-El seeming to be his coronation as sacred tribal priest-king, earthly surrogate of the sky-god; certainly that outcome is here in the myth of Se'ir, which is integral to the Ya'akov story, for Se'ir became Esav's father-in-law.
And there is furtherevidence. One last etymological link provides it: the goat-god is linked to the sky-god, as noted above, because the sky-god shares many aspects: in one the storm (Sa'ar - שער), in another the awe-inspiring nature of the heavens (the Se'arum - שְׂעָרוּם - of the Deuteronomy passage), and from the sun, always, a link to the ripe corn and barley, whose bright yellow ears serve as pictograms for the sun's rays. Thus the tale of Tammuz, who also gives his name to the month of high summer when the corn and barley are harvested. And guess what, Se'orah (שְׂעֹרָה), also from the same root, is the word for "barley", perhaps because the barley has "hairy" ears. See Job 31:40 and Joel 1:11, but more importantly Leviticus 27:16 and Ruth 2:17, which describe the ripe barley in full ear (the barley once shorn of its ears, like Shimshon by Delilah in that version of the Tammuz myth - Judges 16 - is known as Kusemet/כסמת). Ruth 1:22 even has Ketsir Se'orim (קציר שערים) for the barley harvest, now known as Shavu'ot, and liturgically entirely focused on the Book of Ruth, after which no further evidence can surely be needed.
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