EDOM (IDUMEA). - Name by which are called: 1) the adult Esau (Gen. 25, 30; 36, 19); 2) his descendants and their land (Ex. 15, 15; Num. 20, 14 ff.; Judg. 5, 4; 11, 17 f.; II Sam. 8, 14; I Kings 9, 26; 11, 14 ff.; II Kings 3, 8 f.; 8, 20-22, etc.). The Hebrew Edhōm (transcribed in Assyrian documents as Udumu, in Egyptian as Aduma) is rendered by the Septuagint sometimes as Edhōm, sometimes as Idhūm.
E. and Seir are equivalent. The dwelling of E. is in the region and mountain of Seir: here comes Esau after having left Jacob and the land of Canaan, so that "land of E." (Gen. 32, 4; 36, 8; Judg. 5, 4) becomes synonymous with "land of Seir," in southern Palestine. An ancient theory, which still counts many supporters, identifies Mount Seir with the Sera, east of the 'Arabah (v.) between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Elan. It is, however, much more certain to consider the center of Mount Seir in the Gebel Maqā, west of the 'Arabah. Egyptian documents, around 1300 B.C., present the Aduma who cross the frontier to pasture their flocks in the land of the pharaoh. It is therefore not a tribe that came from afar, but a people living near Egypt. The el-Amarna letters also place the country Seir south of Palestine. The northern border of Idumea is the tribe of Judah (Jer. 15, 1, 21), whose southern limit is formed by the line that starts from the Dead Sea, reaches Kadesh-barnea (= 'Ajn Qedeja') and arrives at Wādi el-'Arīš. The desert of Sin, north of the desert of Pharan (Badjet et-Tih), was "along the side of E."; "it takes eleven days' journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by way of the mountains of Seir" (Deut. 1, 2). The penetration of the Simeonites into Seir, at the expense of Amalek, still brings us to these surroundings (I Chron. 4, 12). In early times, therefore, E. was situated west of the 'Arabah. This zone is a limestone plateau, which a ridge south of Hebron separates from the highland of Judea. A predestined zone, it serves as a passage to the Sinai desert.
But the historical and geographical sense of E. changes with time. In the era of the kings of Judah the existence of an eastern E. is certain, which comprised the stretch between the Wādi el-Ḥesā and the Gulf of 'Aqabah with the slopes of Gebal (Eusebius and St. Jerome consider Gebalene = Idumea) and of Sera; Bosra (v.) was the capital (Am. 1, 12; Is. 34, 6; 63, 1; Jer. 49, 13, 22); Jer. and Obad. in their invectives against E. allude to the holes of Petra (Sela) and the eagles' nests, which formed its jagged crests. To the region of E. the Meunites of II Chron. 20, 1 are reattached, the country of Uz, the homeland of Job, and Theman (the country of Eliphaz), 15 miles from Petra. E. in the Old Testament was separated from Moab by the Wādi el-Ḥesā, by the neghebh and by the desert of Sin, and extended as far as the Elanitic Gulf and the desert of Pharan. The eastern part of the 'Arabah was the noblest. The Bible cites about ten cities such as Petra (v.) or Sela, Phunon (Num. 33, 42), Bosra, Thophel (Deut. 1, 1), Elath and Ezion-geber, together with others whose identification is uncertain. After the Babylonian exile Idumea, under the pressure of the Nabateans, extends to Hebron, Ador, Maresa, Azotus, so that the line that from Azotus, through Eleutheropolis (= Baji Gibrin), leads to Hebron can be established as its northern border (v. EDOMITES).
Vincenzo M. Jacono