Edom (Heb., 'red') is given in Genesis as the surname of Esau (q.v.), who, after leaving his father's house, went with his family to 'Mount Seir,' which he took from its earlier inhabitants, the troglodyte Horites. The name Seir or Edom was applied to the whole country extending from the Dead Sea southwards to the Gulf of Akabah, and bounded on the W. by the wilderness of Paran, and on the N. and NE. by the wilderness of Sin and the land of Moab. It was about 100 miles long from north to south. The mountains of Edom are steep, bare masses of chalk and porphyry, 'far from the fat places of the earth and from the dew of heaven above,' where men could only 'live by the sword'—i.e. by robbery and the chase (Gen. xxvii. 39, 40); but from the mountains (now called Esh-shera) lying east of the Arabah (Wady Mousa), and their northern continuation Jebal, stretched a plateau favourable to vine-growing and tillage. On this side of the country lay the chief town, Sela, on the eastern slope of Mount Hor (4320 feet), the highest peak of Mount Seir, and also the other towns Maon (now Maan), Bozrah (now Buseirah), Punon, and the scaports Elath and Ezion-geber on the Gulf of Akabah. The road taken by pilgrims from Damascus to Mecca passes through Maan, and doubtless the same route was taken in ancient times by the caravans from the Gulf of Akabah and Central Arabia to Damascus and the Euphrates, which developed the trade of Elath, Selah, and Bozrah. The Edomites were recognised by the Israelites as a closely-connected race, who had attained to settled life and independence before them. Their religion was polytheism. Josephus's reference to an Edomite idol, Koze, is confirmed by the discovery of the name of an Edomite king, Kaus-malaka ('Kaus is king'), on an inscription of Tiglathpileser. The Book of Numbers relates that the refusal of the Edomites to allow the Israelites to cross their land obliged the latter to make a toilsome journey round the whole country to the Promised Land. The Edomites were conquered by Saul and subdued by David, and were subject to Judah till the reign of Joram. Again conquered by Amaziah and Uzziah, they regained their independence under Ahaz. After the fall of the kingdom of Judah, they became masters of Hebron and southern Palestine; but, after being defeated by Judas Maccabæus about 165–164 B.C., they were completely subdued by John Hyrcanus about 126, and compelled to be circumcised. From about 300 B.C. the eastern part, with the capital Selah (Petra), had been in the hands of the Nabatheans, and from the time of John Hyrcanus the western part (Idumæa) was held by Jewish governors, one of whom, Antipater, through the favour of the Roman emperor, became procurator of all Judæa in 47 B.C. His son, Herod the Great (q.v.), founded the last Jewish dynasty. After the destruction of Jerusalem (70 A.D.) the country was merged in Arabia Petræa, and the name of Idumæa disappears from history. See PETRA.
See Laborde and Linant, Voyage de l'Arabie Pétrée (Paris, 1830); vol. ii. of Lord Lindsay's Letters on Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land (3d ed. Lond. 1839); vol. iii. of D. Roberts and G. Croly's The Holy Land, Syria, Idumæa, &c. (Lond. 1849); Palmer, The Desert of the Exodus (Lond. 1871); vol. i. of De Luynes's Voyage d'Exploration à la Mer Morte, à Petra, &c. (Paris, 1874).