The Untold Truth Of Esau From The Bible

Publish date: 2024-03-14

As Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich explains, after Esau and Jacob reconcile in Genesis 33, the two brothers go their separate ways, with Jacob settling in Canaan and Esau taking his family to the hill country of Seir, which area came to be known by Esau's nickname, Edom. The historical Edomites, who lived to the southwest of what would become the Kingdom of Judah, would fulfill the prophecy that Esau's line would serve Jacob's when King David led a conquest against Edom, at least according to the biblical books of Samuel and Kings. The Edomites sided with the Babylonians in their conquest of Judah in 586 BCE, allowing them to expand their kingdom in much of the old Judahite territory, but the Jews conquered the people of Edom once again and forcibly converted them to Judaism during the reign of the Hasmonean kings.

In later centuries, however, it was not a small kingdom in the hill country that Jewish people associated with Edom. Instead, it was the greatest city in the world at the time: Rome. The association between Rome and Edom likely begins because Edom–known by the Romans as Idumea–was the origin of Herod the Great, the Jewish client king who ruled Judea on behalf of the Romans. Following Herod's death, Judea was fully absorbed by Rome, thus indelibly linking the mighty empire and the king from Idumea.

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