Pau

Pau (also spelled Pai in 1 Chronicles 1:50) was the royal city of Hadar, the eighth and final king listed in the Edomite catalog "before any king reigned over the Israelites" (Genesis 36:39). Hadar's wife was Mehetabel daughter of Matred daughter of Mezahab — one of the few queen-mothers of the patriarchal age named in Scripture. The list of eight Edomite kings deliberately closes with Hadar of Pau, after which the Edomite throne apparently passed to a confederation of chiefs (the "chiefs of Edom" in Genesis 36:40-43) rather than a single monarchy. The site of Pau is unknown but lay somewhere in the highlands of Edom south of the Dead Sea, possibly at Khirbet Faihan east of Petra. The detail about Mehetabel's genealogy through "Matred daughter of Mezahab" — Mezahab meaning "waters of gold" — suggests royal Edomite memory preserved in oral genealogies long after the events themselves.