Who are the Edomites?
Executive summary
The Edomites were an ancient people traditionally described in the Hebrew Bible as descendants of Esau (also called Edom) who inhabited the rugged territory south and southeast of Judah, a region later called Edom or Idumaea; the group appears in both biblical narrative and archaeological scholarship as a real society that interacted, fought and sometimes merged with neighboring peoples [1] [2] [3]. Modern scholarship treats the Edomites as a complex historical population whose visibility varies across sources: biblical texts emphasize kinship and enmity with Israel, archaeology finds settlement continuity and later integration into Judean society, and historians debate the scale and timing of their political structures [4] [3] [5].
1. Origins in story and name: Esau, “Edom,” and the biblical pedigree
Biblical tradition traces Edomite origins to Esau, Jacob’s twin brother: Genesis and later summaries present Esau as the progenitor whose descendants settle in the hill country called Seir, and the name Edom (meaning “red”) becomes both a personal and territorial label in scriptural genealogies [1] [6]. The Bible repeatedly frames Edom as kin to Israel yet frequently hostile—texts from Judges through the prophets record conflicts, refusals of passage, and prophetic denunciations that shape the Edomite image in Hebrew memory [4].
2. Geography, economy and an identifiable people in antiquity
Ancient Edom occupied the highlands south of the Dead Sea and along trade arteries toward the Gulf of Aqaba; its prosperity is often linked to control of trade routes and copper-working sites such as Ezion-Geber, features noted by modern reference works that place Edom in what is now southern Jordan and southern Israel [2]. Archaeological surveys and new digs in the Arabah/Arava suggest a more state-like settlement pattern in some periods, lending support to theories of a political kingdom in the Iron Age—though the archaeological record is uneven and debated [3].
3. The Idumaeans, Nabataeans and the shifting map of Edom
Classical authors and later historians refer to the region as Idumaea (Idumaeans), a Hellenistic–Roman designation applied to populations that had been displaced, absorbed or reconstituted after pressures from groups like the Nabataeans; sources show both continuity from Iron Age Edom and significant demographic change, with Idumaeans appearing in southern Judea in the Hellenistic and Roman periods [3] [2]. Scholarly accounts emphasize that “Edom” and “Idumaea” reflect related but historically distinct phases of settlement and identity [3].
4. Religion, culture and the limits of the record
Textual evidence links the Edomites to non‑Israelite cults—scholars and devotional writers name Qos as a chief deity in later periods—yet there are few if any native Edomite “literary” texts; as Zondervan and other commentators note, material remains and written records from Edom are scarce, making cultural reconstruction dependent on archaeology, neighboring records and the Bible itself [7] [8]. That paucity of indigenous sources is a recurring caveat: claims about everyday life, beliefs and social structure must therefore be treated as provisional [7].
5. Politics, assimilation and famous Idumaeans (including Herod)
Historically the Edomites were sometimes conquered, sometimes dominant, and by the late Hellenistic–Roman era many Edomites had been incorporated into Judean polity—John Hyrcanus’s forced conversions are reported in Jewish historical traditions, and the Herod family, of Idumaean origin, rose to rule Judea under Rome, illustrating both assimilation and the political prominence of Edomite-descended elites [9] [3]. Scholars disagree over whether conversions were voluntary or coerced and over the pace of cultural assimilation; arguments about these points carry political and interpretive weight [9] [3].
6. Memory, polemic and scholarly caution: what “Edom” came to mean
In the prophetic books Edom becomes a literary foil—blamed for rejoicing over Judah’s calamity and forecast to fall—a role that complicates attempts to separate historical actions from rhetorical denunciation [4]. Contemporary historians and archaeologists caution that biblical polemic, classical ethnography and sparse archaeology must be balanced: most scholars accept the Edomites as a real people who were eventually absorbed into neighboring cultures, but precise reconstructions of their institutions and decline remain contested [5] [4] [3].