Edomites

The Edomites were the descendants of Esau, Jacob's elder twin, whose other name was Edom, and they formed a kingdom in the hill country of Seir, south of the Dead Sea, with Bozrah as a chief city. The name Edom is Hebrew for "red," and Genesis connects it both to Esau's appearance at birth and to the red stew for which he sold his birthright (Genesis 25:25, 25:30). Genesis 36 calls Esau "the father of the Edomites" and lists their clans and kings (Genesis 36:9, 36:43); the territory lay along the King's Highway, the caravan route Israel asked permission to use (Numbers 20:17).

Scripture presents Edom's history as a story of kinship and conflict. Numbers 20:14-21 records Edom's refusal to let Israel pass through its land, while Deuteronomy 23:7 nevertheless commands, "You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother." An Edomite, Doeg, appears in Saul's court (1 Samuel 21:7); David subdued Edom and garrisoned it (2 Samuel 8:13-14); Hadad the Edomite resisted Solomon (1 Kings 11:14-22); and Edom revolted in Jehoram's reign (2 Kings 8:20-22). The prophets treat Edom as a standing enemy: Psalm 137:7 remembers those who cried "Raze it!" over Jerusalem, and Obadiah, Jeremiah 49:7-22, Ezekiel 25:12-14 and 35, Amos 1:11-12, Isaiah 34:5-6, Lamentations 4:21 and Malachi 1:2-4 all announce judgment on it, Malachi calling its land "The Wicked Land." Jeremiah lists Edom among the nations given into Nebuchadnezzar's hand (Jeremiah 27:3, 27:6) and among the uncircumcised in heart (Jeremiah 9:26), and Amos 9:12 promises that Israel will possess "the remnant of Edom."

Two passages carry particular weight. Isaiah 63:1-6 depicts a figure coming from Edom with garments stained red from treading a winepress, and Revelation 19:13-15 reuses that imagery. Historically, the Nabataeans displaced the Edomites from Seir during the later centuries BC; the people reappear as Idumeans in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and Josephus records their conquest and circumcision under John Hyrcanus and the Idumean ancestry of Herod the Great (Jewish Antiquities 13.257-258; 14.8-10). Idumea appears among the regions supplying crowds to Jesus (Mark 3:8).

Christian readers have long differed over how to take the oracles against Edom. In one common reading, going back to the patristic period, the figure of Isaiah 63:1-3 is the returning Christ executing judgment, and Edom functions as a cipher for the unbelieving world; Augustine and later Reformed interpreters often treated Esau and Edom as a figure of the reprobate over against elect Jacob, following Malachi 1:2-3 as quoted in Romans 9:13. Other readers, including many modern historical and dispensational interpreters, keep the primary sense on a real nation and debate whether the prophecies were fulfilled in the exilic and post-exilic periods or await a future judgment of the nations. Rabbinic Judaism developed its own tradition in which Esau-Edom became a standing symbol for Rome and later for Christendom. The New Testament itself cites Amos 9:12 in the Greek form, "all the Gentiles," at the Jerusalem council (Acts 15:16-17), a textual difference that has shaped how different traditions read Edom's place in the prophetic future.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.