Everything about Edom totally explained
Edom is a name given to
Esau in the
Hebrew Bible, as well as to the nation descending from him. The nation's name in
Assyrian was
Udumi; in
Syriac,
ܐܕܘܡ; in
Greek,
Ἰδουμαία (Idoumaía); in
Latin,
Idumæa or
Idumea.
The Edomite people were a
Semitic-speaking tribal group inhabiting the
Negev Desert and the
Arabah valley of what is now southern
Dead sea and adjacent
Jordan. The region has much reddish sandstone, which may have given rise to the name "Edom". The nation of Edom is known to have existed back to the
8th or
9th century BC, and the Bible dates it back several centuries further. Recent archaeological evidence may indicate an Edomite nation as long ago as the
11th century BC, but the topic is controversial. The nation ceased to exist with the
Jewish-Roman Wars.
The Edomites
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.
In the Bible
The Bible identifies Esau as the
fraternal twin brother of Jacob, the grandson of
Abraham. Jacob became the father of the
Israelites after God renamed Jacob "Israel." Thus Esau shared his mother's womb together with the founder of the nation of
Israel. See . Although Esau was Isaac's first-born entitled to inherit Isaac's wealth and blessing, Esau sold his birthright to his younger brother Jacob (Israel) for a pot of stew. The descendants of Esau and Israel led divergent paths while the Israelites spent approximately 400 years in Egypt (KJV) before returning to the land of Canaan in modern-day Israel. Thus, the Edomites laid claim to having established kings and a kingdom long before the Israelites.
The Bible explains the name "Edom" with no mention of red rock. It refers to the Edomites as descendants of
Esau, and the [[Bookof Genesis 25:25 KJV]And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. mentions "red" a number of times in describing Esau and explaining his alternate name Edom. Hebrew language|Hebrew]]. They named him Esau." Years later, "
Jacob was once simmering a stew, when Esau came home exhausted from the field. Esau said to Jacob: "Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I'm faint: therefore was his name called Edom". (KJV) (see also
retroactive nomenclature).
The Edomites' original country, according to the
Tanakh, stretched from the
Sinai peninsula as far as
Kadesh Barnea. Southward it reached as far as
Eilat, which was the seaport of Edom. On the north of Edom was the territory of
Moab. The boundary between Moab and Edom was the
Wadi Zered. The ancient capital of Edom was
Bozrah According to Genesis, Esau's descendants settled in this land after displacing the
Horites. It was also called the land of
Seir;
Mount Seir appears to have been strongly identified with them and may have been a cultic site. In the time of
Amaziah (838 BC),
Selah (
Petra) was its principal stronghold; Eilat and
Ezion-geber its
seaports.
Genesis 36 chronicles Esau's family and the kings of Edom:
These are the kings who ruled in the land of Edom before a king ruled the children of Israel. And Bela ben Beor ruled in Edom, and the name of his city was Dinhabah. And Bela died, and Jobab ben Zerah from Bozrah ruled in his place. And Jobab died, and Husham of the land of Temani ruled in his place. And Husham died, and Hadad ben Bedad, who struck Midian in the field of Moab, ruled in his place, and the name of his city was Avith. And Hadad died, and Samlah of Masrekah ruled in his place. And Samlah died, and Saul of Rehoboth on the river ruled in his place. And Saul died, and Baal-hanan ben Achbor ruled in his place. And Baal-hanan ben Achbor died, and Hadar ruled in his place, and the name of his city was Pau, and his wife's name was Mehetabel bat Matred bat Mezahab. And these are the names of the clans of Esau by their families, by their places, by their names: clan Timnah, clan Alvah, clan Jetheth, clan Aholibamah, clan Elah, clan Pinon, clan Kenaz, clan Teman, clan Mibzar, clan Magdiel, clan Iram.
The Hebrew word translated as "clan" is
aluf, also translated as "chief", "general", or "duke", and used in this sense only in connection with Edom and Hori. (Since 1948 it has been used for senior ranks in the
Israeli Defense Force).
If the account may be taken at face value, the kingship of Edom was, at least in early times, not
hereditary, perhaps
elective. First Chronicles mentions both a king and
chieftains. When the King of Edom refused to allow the children of Israel to pass through his land on their way to
Canaan, they detoured around the country because of his show of force or because God ordered them to do so rather than wage war. The King of Edom didn't attack the Israelites, though he prepared to resist aggression.
Nothing further is recorded of the Edomites in the Tanakh until their defeat by
King Saul of Israel in the late 1000s BC. Forty years later
King David and his general
Joab defeated the Edomites in the "valley of salt," (probably near the
Dead Sea). An Edomite prince named Hadad escaped and fled to
Egypt, and after David's death returned and tried to start a rebellion, but failed and went to Syria. From that time Edom remained a
vassal of Israel. David placed over the Edomites Israelite governors or prefects, and this form of government seems to have continued under
Solomon. When Israel divided into two kingdoms Edom became a dependency of the
Kingdom of Judah. In the time of
Jehoshaphat (c. 914 BC) the Tanakh mentions a
king of Edom, who was probably an Israelite appointed by the
King of Judah. It also states that the inhabitants of Mount Seir invaded Judea in conjunction with Ammon and Moab, and that the invaders turned against one another and were all destroyed. Edom revolted against
Jehoram and elected a king of its own.
Amaziah attacked and defeated the Edomites, seizing Selah, but the Israelites never subdued Edom completely.
In the time of
Nebuchadnezzar II the Edomites helped plunder Jerusalem and slaughter the Jews. For this reason the Prophets denounced Edom violently.
Although the Idumaeans controlled the lands to the east and south of the Dead Sea, their peoples were held in contempt by the Israelites. Hence the
Book of Psalms says "Moab is my washpot: over Edom will I cast out my shoe". According to the
Torah, the congregation couldn't receive descendants of a marriage between an Israelite and an Edomite until the fourth generation. This law was a subject of controversy between
Shimon ben Yohai, who said it applied only to male descendants, and other
Talmudists, who said female descendants were also excluded.
Economy
The Kingdom of Edom drew much of its livelihood from the caravan trade between Egypt, the
Levant,
Mesopotamia, and southern
Arabia, along the
Incense Route. Astride the
King's Highway, the Edomites were one of several states in the region for whom trade was vital due to the scarcity of arable land. It is also said that sea routes traded as far away as
India, with ships leaving from the port of
Ezion-Geber. Edom's location on the southern highlands left it with only a small strip of land that received sufficient rain for farming.
Edom probably exported
salt and
balsam (used for perfume and
temple incense in the ancient world) from the
Dead Sea region.
Post-Biblical times
Edom is mentioned in
Assyrian
cuneiform inscriptions in the form
"Udumi" or
"Udumu"; three of its kings are known from the same source:
Ḳaus-malaka at the time of
Tiglath-pileser III (c. 745 BC),
Malik-rammu at the time of
Sennacherib (c. 705 BC), and
Ḳaus-gabri at the time of
Esarhaddon (c. 680 BC). According to the Egyptian inscriptions, the "Aduma" at times extended their possessions to the borders of Egypt. After the conquest of Judah by the
Babylonians, the Edomites were allowed to settle in the region south of
Hebron. They prospered in this new country, called by the Greeks and Romans "Idumaea" or "Idumea", for more than four centuries..Strabo, writing around the time of Christ, held that the Idumaeans, whom he identified as of
Nabataean origin, constituted the majority of the population of Western Judea, where they commingled with the Judaeans and adopted their customs .
During the revolt of the
Maccabees against the
Seleucid kingdom,
II Maccabees refers to a Seleucid general named
Gorgias as "Governor of Idumaea"; whether he was a Greek or a
Hellenized Edomite is unknown. Some scholars maintain that the reference to Idumaea in that passage is an error altogether.
Judas Maccabeus conquered their territory for a time in around 163 BC. They were again subdued by
John Hyrcanus (c. 125 BC), who forced them to observe
Jewish rites and laws. They were then incorporated with the Jewish nation.
After the Jewish Wars the Idumaean people are no longer mentioned in history, though the geographical region of "Idumea" is still referred to at the time of
St. Jerome.
Graves and Patai (1964) propose that the Davidic dynasty might have been of Edomite origin by pointing to similarities in the Edomite names of the alufim and the leaders of the tribe of Judah (for example, Qenaz). They suggest that a small Edomite tribe may have resided in the Hebron area even before the Israelite conquest, and during the period described in the Book of Joshua, joined the Israelites in reconquering the Judean hills. Graves and Patai suggest that the Book of Genesis (
Bereshit) may contain Edomite creation myths (Adam = Edom). If so, this would explain certain puzzling issues in the biblical text (for example, Esau, "admoni," being first born and then losing his birthright in a belated "correction").
Recently, however, excavations such as the 2004-2004
UCSD dig at Khirbat an-Nahas, part of the Jabal Hamrat Fidan (JHF) Archaeological Project, in Jordan have shed new light on the history of Edom, unearthing artifacts and evidence of settled state society as early as the tenth century BC, although whether and to what extent these sites reflect Edomite statehood is debated.
Thomas E. Levy, among other scholars, concluded from a survey of the an-Nahas site that Edom was a sophisticated, urbanized society as early as the eleventh century BC, (the date of the first Israelite monarchy, according to the Bible) which even had its own copper works. Radiocarbon tests from the site have confirmed that the industrial areas of the site date to the eleventh and tenth centuries BC.
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