Edomites

The Edomites are the descendants of Esau, settled in the rough country of mount Seir south of the Salt Sea. The opening line of their genealogy is also the equation that governs everything that follows: "Now these are the generations of Esau (the same is Edom)" (Gen 36:1). Israel and Edom are brother-nations — sons of Isaac, twin lines whose oracle was set before either was born — and almost everything the wider scripture has to say about Edom is shaped by what is owed to a brother and what happens when that bond turns hostile.

The Two Brothers in the Womb

Before the brothers are born, the oracle to Rebekah already names two nations: "Two nations are in your womb, And two peoples will be separated from inside you. And the one people will be stronger than the other people. And the elder will serve the younger" (Gen 25:23). The elder comes out red, "all over like a hairy garment. And they named him Esau" (Gen 25:25). He grows into "a skillful hunter, a man of the field" beside his quieter twin (Gen 25:27).

The birthright crisis is the first sign of which way the elder will tilt. Returning faint from the field, Esau speaks the line that the rest of scripture quotes against him: "Look, I am about to die. And what profit will the birthright be to me?" (Gen 25:32). He swears, sells, eats, drinks, and rises up: "So Esau despised his birthright" (Gen 25:34). The summary judgment in Hebrews keeps the same vocabulary — "any whore, or profane person, as Esau, who for one meal sold his own birthright" (Heb 12:16) — and adds that "even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears" (Heb 12:16-17).

The blessing scene at Isaac's bedside seals it. Jacob takes the words meant for Esau, and when Esau at last comes in from his hunting (Gen 27:30) and asks, his father says, "Look, I have made him your lord, and all his brothers I have given to him for slaves… And what then shall I do for you, my son?" (Gen 27:37). Esau's bitter cry, "Have you but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also" (Gen 27:38), wins only a counter-blessing whose terms hang over Edom's whole subsequent history: "Look, of the fatness of the earth will be your dwelling, And of the dew of heaven from above. And by your sword you will live, and you will serve your brother. And it will come to pass, when you will break loose, That you will shake his yoke from off your neck" (Gen 27:39-40). Marriage to "Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite" (Gen 26:34) further marks Esau out from the line carrying the promise.

The breach is partly mended when the brothers meet again on Jacob's return. Jacob "sent messengers before him to Esau his brother to the land of Seir, the field of Edom" (Gen 32:3) — the first explicit naming of Edomite territory — and Esau, no longer murderous, refuses Jacob's gift: "I have enough, my brother; let that which you have be yours" (Gen 33:9). The reconciliation is real, but the genealogies that follow keep the lines firmly separate.

Paul collapses the whole sequence into one citation: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" (Rom 9:13). Hebrews still counts the dying Isaac's act among the works of faith — "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things to come" (Heb 11:20).

Mount Seir and the Sons of Esau

The genealogies of Genesis 36 turn Esau into Edom-the-nation. "Esau dwelt in mount Seir: Esau is Edom. And these are the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in mount Seir" (Gen 36:8-9). The ground had been Horite before: "The Horites also dwelt in Seir previously, but the sons of Esau succeeded them; and they destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did to the land of his possession, which Yahweh gave to them" (Deut 2:12). The list of Edom's chiefs ends, "these are the chiefs of Edom, according to their habitations in the land of their possession. This is Esau, the father of the Edomites" (Gen 36:43).

Edom is also a kingdom early. The chronicler of Genesis pauses to note, "And these are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the sons of Israel" (Gen 36:31). At the Exodus, while Pharaoh's chariots are still being washed up on the shore, the song already sees Edom watching: "Then were the chiefs of Edom dismayed; The mighty men of Moab, trembling takes hold on them: All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away" (Ex 15:15).

The Refusal of Passage

The first direct encounter between Israel and Edom is a request and a refusal. From Kadesh, Moses sends an embassy: "Thus says your brother Israel, You know all the travail that has befallen us… Let us pass, I pray you, through your land: we will not pass through field or through vineyard, neither will we drink of the water of the wells: we will go along the king's highway" (Num 20:14, 17). Edom's reply is curt: "You will not pass through me, or else I will come out with the sword against you" (Num 20:18). Israel offers to pay even for the water (Num 20:19), and Edom answers a second time, "You will not pass through. And Edom came out against him with many people, and with a strong hand. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border: therefore Israel turned away from him" (Num 20:20-21). The judges' rehearsal of the period repeats it tersely: "then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, Let me, I pray you, pass through your land; but the king of Edom didn't listen" (Judg 11:17).

Do Not Detest the Edomite

Yet the wilderness instruction is not war. When Israel reaches Edom's border, the command is restraint: "you⁺ are to pass through the border of your⁺ brothers the sons of Esau, who dwell in Seir; and they will be afraid of you⁺: you⁺ take good heed to yourselves therefore; don't contend with them; for I will not give you⁺ of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on; because I have given mount Seir to Esau for a possession. You⁺ will purchase food of them for silver, that you⁺ may eat; and you⁺ will also buy water of them for silver, that you⁺ may drink" (Deut 2:4-6).

The deuteronomic law of the assembly carries the same posture into the worship: "You will not be disgusted by an Edomite; for he is your brother: you will not be disgusted by an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land. The sons of the third generation who are born to them will enter into the assembly of Yahweh" (Deut 23:7-8). Inside the rough word against Edom that runs through the prophets, this remains the underlying definition — the Edomite is, before anything else, a brother.

Balaam's oracle nevertheless looks past the brotherhood to a future displacement: "And Edom will be a possession, Seir also will be a possession, [who were] his enemies; While Israel does valiantly" (Num 24:18).

Saul, David, Solomon

Once Israel has a king, Edom enters the regular catalog of enemies. Saul "fought against all his enemies on every side, against Moab, and against the sons of Ammon, and against Edom, and against the kings of Zobah, and against the Philistines: and wherever he turned himself, he saved" (1 Sam 14:47). Under David the conquest is decisive: "And he put garrisons in Edom; throughout all Edom put he garrisons, and all the Edomites became slaves to David. And Yahweh gave victory to David wherever he went" (2 Sam 8:14). The chronicler adds the gold and the slaughter — "from Edom, and from Moab, and from the sons of Ammon, and from the Philistines, and from Amalek… Moreover Abishai the son of Zeruiah struck of the Edomites in the Valley of Salt eighteen thousand. And he put garrisons in Edom; and all the Edomites became slaves to David" (1 Chr 18:11-13). The two royal psalms remember it: "Moab is my washpot; On Edom I will cast my sandal: Philistia, shout because of me. Who will bring me into the strong city? Who has led me to Edom?" (Ps 60:8-9; cf. Ps 108:9-10).

David's campaign is also brutal in retrospect. The book of Kings looks back at it through the rise of an Edomite enemy: "Yahweh raised up an adversary to Solomon, Hadad the Edomite: he was of the king's seed in Edom. For it came to pass, when David was in Edom, and Joab the captain of the host went up to bury the slain, and had struck every male in Edom (for Joab and all Israel remained there six months, until he had cut off every male in Edom)" (1 Kgs 11:14-16). And Solomon's foreign-wife problem includes Edom: "Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites" (1 Kgs 11:1).

A Subject Province, Then a Revolt

After Solomon, Edom alternates between subjugation and rebellion. In Jehoshaphat's day, "there was no king in Edom: a deputy was king" (1 Kgs 22:47). When the kings of Israel and Judah march south against Moab, Edom marches with them: "the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah, and the king of Edom; and they made a circuit of seven days' journey: and there was no water for the host, nor for the beasts that followed them" (2 Kgs 3:9). In another southern coalition, when Ammon, Moab, and "mount Seir" come up against Judah, the chronicler reports a divine reversal: "Yahweh set ambushers against the sons of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were struck. For the sons of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, completely to slay and destroy them" (2 Chr 20:22-23).

Under Joram the deputy-rule breaks. "In his days Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah, and made a king over themselves… So Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah to this day" (2 Kgs 8:20, 22). The chronicler links the revolt directly to apostasy: "then Libnah revolted at the same time from under his hand, because he had forsaken Yahweh, the God of his fathers" (2 Chr 21:10). Amaziah of Judah strikes back hard: "He slew of Edom in the Valley of Salt ten thousand, and took Sela by war, and called the name of it Joktheel, to this day" (2 Kgs 14:7); Jehoash answers his subsequent challenge with, "You have indeed struck Edom, and your heart has lifted you up: glory of it, and remain at home" (2 Kgs 14:10). Chronicles supplies the grim sequel: ten thousand more "carried away alive" and thrown from the rock (2 Chr 25:11-12). A generation later, under Ahaz, "again the Edomites had come and struck Judah, and carried away captives" (2 Chr 28:17).

The Day of Jerusalem

The decisive turn is what Edom does when Jerusalem falls. The exilic psalm singles them out: "Remember, O Yahweh, against the sons of Edom The day of Jerusalem; Who said, Lay it bare, lay it bare, Even to its foundation" (Ps 137:7). It is this — Edom standing in Jerusalem's gate at the worst moment, taking sides with Babylon — that focuses the full weight of the prophetic word.

The Prophets on Edom

Obadiah, the shortest book of the prophets, is given over entirely to Edom. The accusation is brotherhood betrayed: "For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever. In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots on Jerusalem, even you were as one of them" (Obad 10-11). Its imagery is the rocky Edomite plateau — "you who stay in the clefts of the rock, in the height of your habitation; who says in his heart, Who will bring me down to the ground? Though you mount on high as the eagle, and though your nest is set among the stars, [by my Speech] I will bring you down from there, says Yahweh" (Obad 3-4). Its conclusion drives toward the inversion the prophets keep returning to: "the house of Jacob will be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they will burn among them, and devour them; and there will not be any remaining to the house of Esau" (Obad 18). The book closes, "And saviors will come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom will be Yahweh's" (Obad 21).

Ezekiel speaks twice in the same register. In the oracle against the nations, Edom's offense is named: "Because Edom has dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and has greatly offended, and revenged himself on them; therefore… I will stretch out my hand on Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it… And I will lay my vengeance on Edom by the hand of my people Israel" (Ezek 25:12-14). The longer oracle is set against the territory itself: "Son of Man, set your face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it, and say to it… Look, I am against you, O mount Seir… I will make you a desolation and an astonishment" (Ezek 35:2-3). The charge is "perpetual enmity" and the desire to swallow Israel's land — "Because you have said, These two nations and these two countries will be mine, and we will possess it; whereas Yahweh was there" (Ezek 35:10) — and the verdict is final: "you will be desolate, O mount Seir, and all Edom, even all of it; and they will know that I am Yahweh" (Ezek 35:15). The same charge returns in the next chapter: Edom and the rest of the nations have "appointed my land to themselves for a possession with the joy of all their heart, with despite of soul" (Ezek 36:5). Edom appears once more in the great underworld catalog of fallen empires: "There is Edom, her kings and all her princes, who in their might are laid with those who are slain by the sword" (Ezek 32:29).

Jeremiah's oracle (Jer 49:7-22) is a sustained address to Edom in which the earlier Genesis names return as enemies. "Of Edom. Thus says Yahweh of hosts: Is wisdom no more in Teman? Has counsel perished from the prudent?" (Jer 49:7). "I will bring the calamity of Esau on him, the time that I will visit him… I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he cannot hide himself: his seed is destroyed, and his brothers, and his neighbors; and he is not" (Jer 49:8, 10). The pride that Obadiah named is named again: "the pride of your heart has deceived you, O you who stay in the clefts of the rock, that hold the height of the hill: though you should make your nest as high as the eagle, by [my Speech] I will bring you down from there" (Jer 49:16). And the parallel to Sodom is fixed: "As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring cities, says Yahweh, a man will not dwell there, neither will any son of man sojourn in it" (Jer 49:18). Earlier Jeremiah includes Edom in the catalog of nations to be punished "circumcised in [their] uncircumcision" (Jer 9:25-26). Lamentations, in the same exilic moment, turns to Edom directly: "Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwell in the land of Uz: The cup will pass through to you also; you will be drunk, and will make yourself naked. The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry you away into captivity: He will visit your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will uncover your sins" (Lam 4:21-22).

Isaiah pictures the judgment as a great sacrificial slaughter and the country as a permanent wilderness: "look, it [the sword] will come down on Edom, and on the people of my curse, to judgment… Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom" (Isa 34:5-6); "the streams of [Edom] will be turned into pitch, and its dust into brimstone, and its land will become burning pitch" (Isa 34:9); "from generation to generation it will lie waste; none will pass through it forever and ever" (Isa 34:10). Bozrah recurs in the most arresting Isaiah image of all: "Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?… Why are you red in your apparel, and your garments like him who treads in the wine vat? I have trodden the wine press alone… For the day of vengeance was in my heart" (Isa 63:1-4). Earlier Isaiah had set a more measured oracle from Seir — "The burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night?" (Isa 21:11) — and a future restoration in which Israel would "put forth their hand on Edom and Moab" (Isa 11:14).

Joel and Amos repeat the verdict in compact form. Joel: "Egypt will be a desolation, and Edom will be a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the sons of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land" (Joel 3:19). Amos opens his round of nation-oracles with Edom's three transgressions: "because he pursued his brother with the sword, and had cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever: but I will send a fire on Teman, and it will devour the palaces of Bozrah" (Amos 1:11-12). Even Moab is condemned with reference to Edom: "because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime" (Amos 2:1). And Amos's final restoration oracle promises that the rebuilt house of David will "possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations that are called by my name" (Amos 9:12).

Malachi's Verdict

The post-exilic community looks across the border at a country in ruins, and the closing book of the prophets uses that ruin to begin its case for Yahweh's love. "I have loved you⁺, says Yahweh. Yet you⁺ say, In what have you loved us? Wasn't Esau Jacob's brother, says Yahweh: yet I loved Jacob; but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and [gave] his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness. Whereas Edom says, We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places; this is what Yahweh of Hosts says, They will build, but I will throw down; and men will call them The border of wickedness, and The people against whom Yahweh has indignation forever" (Mal 1:2-4). The contrast with Jacob is taken back to the mother's womb, and the verdict that began with "the elder will serve the younger" closes on Edom's permanent ruin.

Sirach's catalog of nations Israel's neighbors hates includes a parallel jab: "The inhabitants of Seir, and Philistia, And that foolish nation which dwells in Shechem" (Sir 50:26).

The Sons of Esau in Idumea

By the Maccabean period the country has a Greek name, Idumea, and Edomites are again attacking Judaea. Judas Maccabaeus answers in kind. "And they came into Idumaea, and pitched their tents at Beth-zur, and Judas met them with ten thousand men" (1 Macc 4:29). The next campaign is directly against the old name: "Then Judas fought against the sons of Esau in Idumea, and those who were in Acrabathane: because they beset the Israelites round about, and he made a great slaughter of them" (1 Macc 5:3). The southern campaign reaches into Hebron itself: "Then Judas and his brothers went forth and attacked the sons of Esau, in the land toward the south, and he took Hebron, and her towns. And he pulled down its fortifications, and burned its towers all round it" (1 Macc 5:65). The Genesis vocabulary — "the sons of Esau" — is still the way the Maccabean writer names this enemy, holding the brother-quarrel open into the second century.