Israel’s First Homecoming

The book of Genesis addresses issues posed by the Edomites through the proxy of their ancestor Esau, the twin brother of Jacob/Israel. Already in utero, the relationship between the two boys is characterized by strife and rivalry, and when Jacob, with the help of his mother, purloins the paternal birthright due to Esau, he must flee to save his own skin. During their years of separation, Esau becomes a mighty warrior, while Jacob grows into a wealthy patriarch, with many children, servants, and livestock.

Eventually, Jacob decides to move his family back to the land of his birth. As he prepares for his homecoming, he sends servants ahead to greet his brother in the hopes of gaining his favor (Gen. 32:4–6). The entreaty communicated to Esau resembles the one Moses sends to the Edomite king (Num. 20:14–17), recounting developments over a period in which Jacob/Israel and Esau/Edom had become separated. The petition falls on deaf ears, and just as the Edomite king arms his people to fight the Israelites during the days of Moses, Esau musters a band of 400 warriors and marches out to confront Jacob’s clan.

Jacob responds to Esau’s aggression by separating his camp (maḥaneh, a term with military connotations) into two divisions and attempting to placate Esau’s anger with a gift (minḥāh) of his flocks. (Throughout the story, the authors play with the Hebrew terms “camp” and “gift,” which differ only in the order of two consonants.) During the night, Jacob engages in a wrestling match with a mysterious stranger, and the contest transforms the patriarch as he prepares to meet his brother. His competitor changes his name from Jacob to Israel, who subsequently declares that “I’ve seen God face to face, and my life is rescued” (Gen. 32:31).

When Jacob meets Esau the next morning, he bows seven times. The respect he shows his brother provokes a change of heart. Esau runs and embraces Jacob, falling on his neck and kissing him amidst mutual tears. “Accept this gift from me,” Jacob insists, “for I have seen your face as I have seen the face of God, and you have received me favorably” (Gen. 33:10). After reluctantly accepting a portion of the flock Jacob offers him, Esau volunteers to escort Jacob’s clan to their destination. In the end, Jacob diplomatically turns down the offer, and the brothers part ways on peaceful terms.

The substratum of this account from Genesis may predate the episode with the Edomites in the book of Numbers, yet over time it has evolved into a complex counter-memory to the hostility portrayed in Numbers: long before the days of the exodus, when the Edomite king harassed the Israelites as they were making their way to their homeland, Esau had called off his troops and offered to deploy them to help Jacob’s clan find safe passage to this same land. As one side in this tug-of-war-commemoration, the story of Esau’s rapprochement with and solicitude for Jacob in Genesis affirms the possibility that fraternal relations between Israel and Edom could be reestablished in the present.Footnote ¹

Memories of Edomite Aggression

The tale of these fraternal twins is a study of opposites. “Esau was a skillful hunter and a man of the field, while Jacob was a mild man, one who dwells in tents” (Gen. 25:27).Footnote ² Although the brothers ultimately part in peace, Esau’s pugnacious character mirrors the bellicose proclivities attributed to the Edomites in a number of biblical texts. Thus, the book of Samuel portrays a figure named “Doeg the Edomite” perpetrating a massacre at the town of Nob on King Saul’s behalf (1 Sam. 22:9–23). Describing how an Edomite took sides against the beloved hero David and contributed to the destruction of an Israelite town, this tale would have incensed readers who were already inclined to think of the Edomites as an especially violent and vicious people.Footnote ³

The books of Samuel and Kings present Saul and David subjugating the Edomites (1 Sam. 14:47; 2 Sam. 8:13–14). After David’s death, “Yhwh raised an adversary against Solomon, the Edomite Hadad, who was of the royal family of Edom” (1 Kings 11:14–22). Later, the Edomites break away and establish a king of their own. In retaliation, the Judean kingdom sends chariot divisions against them, but the campaign is unsuccessful. “Thus Edom has rebelled against Judah’s sovereignty until the present day” (2 Kings 8:20–22; see also 2 Kings 14:7 and 16:6). Judean resentment resounds throughout these records of Edom’s rise.Footnote ⁴

In an oracle from the book of Amos, Yhwh promises to reestablish “the fallen booth of David,” which will seize territory from the Edomites and “all the other nations called by my [i.e., Yhwh’s] name” (Amos 9:12).Footnote ⁵ This same work begins with a series of oracles against the nations, in which Edom is harshly censured for participating in the trade of war captives. “Edom pursued his brother with the sword, repressed all pity [alternatively: “destroyed wombs”], maintained his anger perpetually, and preserved his fury forever” (Amos 1:6–12).Footnote ⁶

Pronouncements of judgment upon Edom, similar to that in Amos, appear repeatedly in prophetic writings, often as retribution for Judah’s/Zion’s fate.Footnote ⁷ For example, Ezekiel proclaims:

Unwarranted brutality in wartime is a common theme in the broadsides against the Edomites.Footnote ⁸ Psalm 137, an appeal not to forget Jerusalem, accuses the Edomites of taking pleasure in the rape of the city during the days of the Babylonian conquest:

The short book of Obadiah consists of a single pronouncement of divine judgment on Edom, and the imprecation is vindicated, once again, by appealing to the memory of Edomite actions against their own kin in wartime:

Edom’s lack of brotherly love manifested itself concretely in their purloining of Jerusalem’s wealth, their glee on the “day of Judah’s calamity” (a play on “Edom”), and their slaughter/betrayal of war refugees.Footnote ¹⁰

The Politics of Scapegoating

Thus far, we’ve seen how biblical scribes reproached the Edomites by constructing memories of their unbrotherly behavior in wartime. These memories reflect deep misgivings toward Edom, an attitude to which Deuteronomy responds with its injunction not to abhor Edomite kin. The fervor of these exchanges begs the question: What is it about this population that elicited such a vigorous volley of texts?

The Edomites must have long occupied the attention of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, but the increased attention they receive in advanced stages of the Bible’s composition history must be appreciated against the backdrop of events in years directly before and after the Babylonian conquest. During this period, Judah surrendered much of its southern territory (beginning just north of Hebron) to the Edomites/Idumeans. Several documents found at Arad in the south of Judah, which probably date to 598/597 BCE, refer to Edomite incursions into the region and the crimes perpetrated by this population against Judah at a time of weakness.Footnote ¹¹

While the memories of Edom’s wartime transgressions likely have a basis in historical realities, they appear to have been embellished and inflated for the sake of polemic. It’s noteworthy that the Babylonian sources and the oldest biblical depictions of the demolition refer only to the Babylonians and fail to mention Edomite involvement. The book of Jeremiah, moreover, reports that Judeans had sought refuge in a number of places, including Edom, whence they returned after hearing that the king of Babylon had taken measures to repopulate Judah.Footnote ¹² Why then do so many of the biblical texts we have just surveyed accuse the Edomites of betraying Judah?

In several insightful studies, Juan Manuel Tebes interprets the biblical polemics against Edom from the perspective of “stab-in-the-back” myths (Dolchstoßlegende) that emerged in Germany after 1918. According to this scapegoating notion, culpability for military defeat is assigned to others, such as “Bolshevist Jews,” who were accused of acts of double-crossing and betrayal. According to Tebes, “Someone had to be responsible for [Judah’s] terrible defeat. As in similar post-war defeated societies, minority groups inside the society, such as members of other ethnic communities or followers of different religions, were singled out as the cause of the national downfall. Late Iron Age Judah housed several foreign peoples, but only one upon whom could be placed the burden of guilt: the Edomites.”Footnote ¹³

While this scapegoating interpretation is certainly suggestive, there’s a problem with it: none of the biblical texts claim that Judah lost the war with Babylon because Edom betrayed them. Making the marginalized Other responsible for one’s own defeat is essential to the stab-in-the-back notion, and that’s simply not the case in the biblical memories of Edom. In constructing these memories, scribes were engaging in a form of war commemoration on display throughout the biblical corpus. (Thus, as we saw in Chapter 1, a series of Pentateuchal passages cast aspersions on Israel’s neighbors by fabricating memories of their aggression during their first encounters.) Though undeniably political and polemical, the memories of Edom do not engage in scapegoating.

Indeed, what’s really remarkable is the consistency with which biblical narratives, prophecies, laments, etc. assign culpability to their own communities. By interpreting defeat as divine punishment for the nation’s wrongdoing, these texts make the trauma of imperial subjugation the springboard for inventing a new form of peoplehood capable of withstanding the loss of their political sovereignty.Footnote ¹⁴

While taking umbrage at the failure of their kin to display brotherly love at vulnerable moments in the nation’s history, the biblical scribes refrained from making the Edomites responsible for their defeat. In contrast to the strategy adopted by many German intellectuals after 1918, these scribes did not nurture a new national identity with claims that things would have turned out much differently were it not for a minority in their midst. While they malign the memory of the Edomites, they also hold their polemics in check: “Do not abhor the Edomite, for he is your brother.”

Judean Irredentism

Their pain, our gain. Though most likely exaggerated in biblical texts, the Edomite reaction to Judah’s downfall in 587 BCE would have been positive (just as Judah was likely jubilant after Israel’s downfall in 722 BCE). What prompted Edom’s elation was less a deep-seated enmity between the two peoples than the prospect of territorial aggrandizement: the collapse of Judah’s kingdom under Babylonian domination permitted Edomite encroachment on ancestral Judean lands.

Edom’s territorial expansion provoked an “irredentist” posture in many Judean circles. (The term originated among the nineteenth-century Italian irredentista who sought to “redeem” to their homeland all Italian-speaking districts under Austro-Hungarian rule.) Thus, the punishment Obadiah envisions for Edom’s war crimes is forfeiture of their territories to the exiles who live there. The “House of Jacob will take possession of those who dispossessed them,” and these territories are referred to as “the towns of the Negeb” and “Mount Esau” (Obad. vv. 17–20). The same irredentist perspective informs the book of 1 Esdras (an alternative version of Ezra-Nehemiah from the late Hellenistic period). In this history, the Persian king Darius decrees that “the Idumeans [Edomites] are to give up the villages of the Jews that they held,” after he had just been reminded of his vow to rebuild Jerusalem and its temple that “the Edomites burned when Judah was laid waste by the Chaldeans” (1 Esd. 4:45, 50).Footnote ¹⁵

The epigraphic record from both pre-exilic times and the Persian-Hellenistic period reflects conditions of Edomites moving into the Negeb and northward, settling in what had been part of southern Judah. The territory came to be known as “Idumea.” Just as Edomites/Idumeans were integrated into Judean society (as reflected in the figure of Doeg from the book of Samuel), many Judeans lived in Idumea.Footnote ¹⁶ For the late fifth and especially the fourth century BCE, we have almost two thousand Aramaic ostraca (short texts inscribed on pottery shards) from this region, which attest to generally harmonious relations, if not a symbiosis, between these populations. Even so, the memory of Judah’s past sovereignty in the region would have endured, feeding irredentist longings and provoking the kind of accusatory salvos that we find in our biblical texts.Footnote ¹⁷

Although these texts refer to the Edomites’ behavior during the destruction of Judah by the Babylonians, many were written in the Persian and Hellenistic periods, when anti-Edomite animus escalated. (Thus, the book of Judith, which is clearly a Hellenistic work, tells how the Edomites formed an alliance with other peoples in the Levant against the Israelites and betrayed them to their enemies.Footnote ¹⁸) In the second century BCE, the irredentist aspirations were realized: as Judah began to regain its native military strength, the Maccabees undertook campaigns against “the descendants of Esau” and reconquered what had become Idumean territories.Footnote ¹⁹

Implications for the Documentary Hypothesis

Our survey of biblical texts related to the Edomites has direct implications for theories of the Pentateuch’s formation. It seems highly improbable that one and the same source would have told about the happy reunion between Jacob and Esau (Gen. 32–33) and then later depicted the Edomites taking up arms against Israel when they requested passage through their lands (Num. 20). It wouldn’t be surprising if one massive and complex work like the Pentateuch has competing views. We naturally assume that it, like any other ancient saga, is the product of a plurality of authors and incorporates earlier sources with discordant attitudes and conflicting perspectives. Yet what is less disturbing in a complex work like the Pentateuch becomes much more conspicuous and irritating when two texts with very different attitudes, as in the case of Genesis 32–33, and Numbers 20, are assigned to a single shorter document (such as the “Elohist”).

Many contemporary defenders of the Documentary Hypothesis are especially emphatic about the independence of the older sources, insisting that their authors were not familiar with each other’s work.Footnote ²⁰ One might then attempt to attribute Genesis 32–33, to one source and Numbers 20, to a different one. Yet it beggars belief to suppose that the accounts emerged in isolation from each other, as they bear many marks of cross-pollination: Both are about a voyage of Jacob/Israel to their homeland. Both present the protagonists (Moses and Jacob) sending messages to the other party, recounting events after an earlier point of separation (Jacob’s departure from his family; Israel’s sojourn in Egypt). Both Esau and the Edomite king come out against Jacob/Israel with troops prepared to inflict injury. Yet Esau, in contrast to the Edomite king, eventually offers to assign his warriors to guard Jacob’s clan until they arrive at their destination.

If these texts are ascribed to the same document, one might attempt to understand them as being etiological, reporting that the ancestors of Israel and Edom once got along but that their descendants were inclined to cross swords. The problem with this solution is that it fails to take seriously the various and profound ways in which Genesis differs from the narrative in Exodus-Joshua: Genesis offers a modus vivendi with outsiders, and it depicts Egypt extending generous hospitality to Jacob’s family when they migrate as refugees from famine-stricken Canaan. In glaring contrast to Genesis, the narrative in Exodus-Joshua begins with Egypt pursuing a program of genocide against Israel. The same antipathy characterizes relations between Israel and most other peoples in these books. Time and again, the nation is forbidden to enter into treaties with Canaan’s inhabitants; it is to give them no quarter as it takes possession of their land. Genesis articulates both a vision of, and concrete strategies for, peaceful coexistence that couldn’t be more at odds with the general animus toward outsiders in Exodus-Joshua.Footnote ²¹

Contesting Memories

The tale of Jacob’s rapprochement with Esau is a complex account with an ideological agenda. Symbolically, it treats Israel’s relations with the Other, personified in the patriarch’s twin brother. Yet it also relates to a particular population. If Esau and Jacob could “kiss and make up” after years of enmity, then a future reconciliation with Edom is possible. Numbers 20, on the other hand, rejects this conciliatory stance with a counter-memory in which the Edomites fail to display fraternal solicitude. Their behavior at a critical moment in Israel’s history – and their failure to comply with standard conventions of wartime – justifies belligerence toward them in the present, in keeping with the rationale treated in Chapter 1 under the rubric “War Memories as Casus Belli.”Footnote ²²

Perhaps some scholars will persist in the effort to press these rival memories into the confines of a single source or demonstrate that they belong to different sources that were drafted without any knowledge of each other. But such endeavors prove to be misguided when confronted with the abundance and heterogeneity of the texts related to the Edomites’ wartime conduct throughout Israel’s history, as well as the many analogous war memories for other neighbors examined in this book.

A more tenable approach takes seriously the extent to which texts gradually accumulate layers of editorial accretions, reflecting the perspectives and concerns of different times and places.Footnote ²³ Thus, it seems likely that the portion of the account in Numbers 20 that overlaps with Genesis 32–33, telling how, after sojourning in a foreign land, the Edomites’ kin are now voyaging back to their homeland (Num. 20:14b–16, 18–19), represents a late scribal supplement. If so, the account of the Israelites’ petition to the Edomite king would provide a perfect form-critical parallel to the petition they make to Sihon in the following chapter (Num. 21:21–23).

Though it’s much less tidy, this mode of supplementation reflects more faithfully the often contradictory and cluttered character of demotic war commemoration and other decentralized forms of social discourse. Such contestation of memories is well attested in contexts where cultural-political expressions are not monopolized by a single power. While examples abound in modernity, in antiquity we can witness a “war of memories” not only in the biblical corpus but also in the ancient Aegean world, whose competing states vied for status, membership, and honor in a larger political community. What’s remarkable about biblical war commemoration is that while it, too, presupposes a political community larger than its two member states (Israel and Judah), it flourishes among anonymous scribes in the period following the downfall of these states (in 722 BCE and 587 BCE, respectively).Footnote ²⁴

We don’t know much about the social location of these scribes, but three facts are indisputable: 1) there were many of them; 2) they often did not share the same perspective; and 3) they created a corpus of texts that palpably, even if only partially, preserves their plurality.