The Heb. C1X, Edom, as the name of the people, is masculine (Numb, xxii, 20) ; as the name of the coun- try, ye?«zntne (Jer. xlix, 17). We often meet with the phrase D'lit T^-'^^ Ei-ets-Edom, "the Land of Edom," and once with the poetic form D^iiSl ITlb, Sedek-Edom, " the Field of Edom" (Judg. v, 4). The inhabitants are sometimes styled d"lX "^Sa, Beney-Edom, " the Children of Edom," and poetically dSx PS, Bath-Edom, " the Daughter of Edom" (Lam. iv, 21, 22). A single person was called "''sHx, Adomi, "an Edomite" (Deut. xxiii, 8), of wliich the feminine H'^TilX, Adomith, occurs in 1 Kings xi, 1.
1. 'Origin of the Name. — The name was derived from Isaac's son Edom, otherwise called Esau, the elder twin- linitlirr of Jacob. See Esau. It signifies red, and si'( ins first to have been suggested by his appearance at liis birth, when " he came out all red," i. e. covered with red hair (Gen. xxv, 25), and it was afterwards more for- mally and permanently imposed on him on account of his unworthy disposal of his birthright for a mess of red lentiles (Gen. xxv, 30): "And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, yrow the red, that red (DTNil""^ Wil fiSxri), for I am faint; therefore was his )iame called i?e(r'(Edom ; DinX). In the East it has always been usual for a chief either to give his name to the country which he coriquers, or over which he rules, or to take a name from it. Esau, during the life of his father, seized the moimtainous region occupied by the Ilorites. He had two names ; but one of Ihem was pe- culiarly applicable to the newly - acquired tenitory. The moiuitains of Seir M'ere remarkable for their reddish color; hence, doubtless, the name Edom, "red," was given to them. Esau is called " the father of Edom," giving to it his name and ruling over it (Gen. xxxvi, 43) ; and the countrj-, in a very few cases, is also called " the mount of Esau" (Obad. 8', 9, 19).
The original name of the comitry was Momd Seir, and it was probably so called from Seir, the ]ir()genitor of the Horites (Gen.xiv, C; xxxvi, 20-22), though the signification of this name, rugged, may have been the cause of its adoption, as the mountains are singularly rough and rugged. And so says Josephus {Ant. i, 20, 3): "Esau named the country 'Roughness' from his own hairy roughness." Part of the region is still called E&h-Sherah, in which some find a trace of Seir, but the two words have no etymological relation. The name Seir continued to be applied to Edom after its occupa- tion by the descendants of Esau, and even down to the close of the O.-T. history (see Josh, xi, 17 ; 2 Cliron. xx,
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10: Ezck. XXV. 8, etc.). The aborigines were called Horites (Sept. Koppcitoi ; Gen. xiv, G) ; that is, Trof/lo- di/tes, or " cave-dwellers," from the nature of their liabi- tations. See Ilourrii. The mountains of Edom, as all travellers know, are filled with caves and grottoes hewn in the soft sandstone strata.
2. Situation ami Boundaries. — Edom proper, or Itlu- nifea, is situated on the south-eastern border of Pales- tine, extending from it to the northern extremity of the Elanitic Gulf. It was bounded on the west by the great valley of the Arabah, on the south by a line drawn due east from the modern fortress of Akabah, on the east by the desert of Arabia, and on the north by the an- cient kingdom of JMoab. Its length from nortli to south was about lOD miles, and its breadth averaged 20. These boundaries are nowhere directly defined, but we can ascertain them from various incidental references in Scripture. When the Israelites encamped at Kadesh- barnea they were close to the border of Edom (Numb, xx), and Moimt Hor is said to be within its border (xxxiii, 37). Hence, as Kadesh was situated in the valley of the Arabah, and as Mount Hor is only a few miles to the east of it, we conclude that the Arabah is the western boundary. The Israelites asked, but were refused, a passage through either Edom or Moab, so as to go direct from Kadesh to the east side of the Jordan (Numb. XX, 1-1-20 ; Judg. xi, 17, 18). In consequence of this refusal, they were obliged to march south along the Arabah to Ezion-geber, and thence eastward by the wilderness round the territories of Edom and Moab (id. with Numb, xxi, -1). Hence we conclude that Edom and ]SIoab occupied the whole region along the east side of the valley of the Arabah, from the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf. Edom was wholly a mountainous coun- try, as may be inferred from the names given to it in the Bible and by ancient writers (Deut. i, 2 ; ii, 5 ; Jo- sephus. Ant. ii, 1, 2; Eusebius, Ononuist. s. v. Idumsea). The foot of the mountain range, therefore, may be re- garded as marking its eastern border. On the north it appears to have been separated from Moab by the " brook Zered" (Deut. ii, 13, 14, 18 ; Numb, xxi, 12), which is probably identical with the modern wady el- Ahsy. These views are corroborated by other and in- dependent testimony. In the Samaritan Pentateuch the word Gahhi is substituted for Seii- in Deut. xxxii, 2 ; and Eusebius and Jerome state that Iilamrea was in their time called Gehalene, which is a Greek (rf/iaXj/i/i)) corruption of the Hebrew Gebal, " mountain" (Onomast. id. et s. v. Seir), and is retained to this day in the Arabic form Jebdl. The modern province of Jebal is bounded on the west by the Arabah, and on the north by wady el-Ahsy (Kobinson, Bib. Bes. ii, 151 ; Burckhardt, Trav. in Sijria, p. 410). We may safely conclude from this that the ancient province had the same boundaries, as it had the same name. Thus Josephus writes {Ant. v, 1, 22) : " The lot of Simeon included that part of Idumsea which bordered upon Egypt and Arabia;" and, though this is true, it does not contradict the language of Scrip- ture— "I will not give you of their land, no, not so much as a footbreadth, because I have given Mount Seir unto Esau for a possession" (Deut. ii, 5). Not a footbreadth of Edom Proper, or Mount Seir, was ever given by divine sanction to the Jews.