Followers

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Ancient Edom


Moses and Aaron were descendants of Seir, the Horite Hebrew. 


Edom is an ancient territory that plays a significant role in the development of the Messianic Faith that is fulfilled in Jesus Messiah. This article highlights the prestige and antiquity of Edom.

Genesis 36 lists some of the chiefs of Edom. Edom and Seir are linked in the Song of Deborah and Barak in Judges 5:3-4:
"Listen, O kings! Give ear, O princes! I will sing to the LORD; I will sing praise to the LORD, the God of Israel. O LORD, when You went out from Seir, when You marched from the land of Edom, the earth trembled, the heavens poured out rain, and the clouds poured down water."
Seir the Horite Hebrew was a ruler in Edom. His palace and royal temple would have been built at a high elevation on Mount Seir. Mount Seir is mentioned 15 times in the Old Testament and Seir 14 times.

Deuteronomy 68:8 declares, "The LORD came from Sinai and dawned upon us from Seir; He shone forth from Mount Paran and came with myriads of holy ones, with flaming fire at His right hand."

The antiquity and prestige of the Edomite rulers and Teman of Edom is expressed in Jeremiah's reference to these as ancient seats of wisdom (Jeremiah 49:7). Genesis 36 explains, "These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the children of Israel."

Edom was a copper-rich region with industrial scale copper production. Radiocarbon analysis of charred wood, grain and fruit in several sediment layers revealed two major phases of copper processing, first in the 12th and 11th centuries, and later in the 10th and 9th BC.

Dr. Thomas E. Levy stated, "Only a complex society such as a paramount chiefdom or primitive kingdom would have the organizational know-how to produce copper metal on such an industrial scale."
 

Abraham's Territory

The rulers listed in Genesis 4, 5, 10, 11, 25 and 36 practiced endogamy and certain genetic traits were inherited by their descendants. Apparently, a red skin tone was one of those traits. The biblical writers recognized that the people among them with red skin were of an ancestral line of extreme antiquity.

Some of those red people were rulers in Edom (Gen. 36) In Hebrew edom means red. Esau of Edom is described as “red” in Genesis 26. Seth is often portrayed as a red hippo. The word Adam is related to red, the color of the soil (adamah) from which he was formed. 

Edom is the name of the region in which Abraham the Hebrew established his territory. His territory extended between Hebron and Beersheba. Sarah, his half-sister wife, lived in Hebron and Keturah, his cousin bride, resided in Beersheba. The people who lived in Edom had a reddish skin tone. That is why the Greeks called this region Idumea, meaning "land of red people."

 


The intermarriage of the Hebrew of Edom and Seir is evident in analysis of the data of Genesis chapter 36. Esau was a ruler in Edom. His wife Adah was Hittite relative. The Hebrew rulers practiced bride exchange to strengthen their ruler-priest caste.


The clan of Seir the Horite Hebrew. His daughter Timna married Eliphaz of Edom.



Related reading: Adam Was a Red ManThe Sethites and the Red HippoThe Horite Hebrew Wisdom of Elihu; Nilotes in the Sinai; Aaron Was Buried in Edom; The Edomites and the Color Red; Amram's Children; The Hebrew Were a Caste


No comments:

Post a Comment