Edom extended from the Dead Sea on the north to the Elanitic Gulf on the south, the eastern arm of the Red Sea. It was about one hundred miles in length, and about twenty miles broad. The country, although not wanting in rich meadows and fertile plains, was, yet on the whole, a mountainous one, rising in some places to an altitude of 3000 feet. It was anciently a kingdom of considerable importance and figures largely in prophecy and history, the ruins of no less than thirty towns, and that within a three days' journey of the Red Sea, fully attest to the eyes of the western world the position which Edom at one time occupied.
The Edomites were governed by dukes and kings long before Israel was formed into a kingdom (Gen. 36), and maintained a haughty independence until subdued by David, after an immense slaughter of its people. The country was then garrisoned, and the Edomites became tributary to David (1 Chron. 18:12, 13); afterward a deputy was appointed for its government under the Judean kings (1 Kings 22:47). Hadad, an Edomite, singularly preserved from the almost universal massacre of his countrymen by Joab (1 Kings 11:14-25), attempted in vain to regain his country's independence. They revolted on several occasions, but suffered a terrible check under Amaziah, king of Judah, who took their principal city, Sela, and cruelly killed ten thousand of the people. The awful cliffs and precipitous rocks, some of which rise to a height of a thousand feet, were the scene of a truly dreadful deed. Ten thousand of the Edomites, spared from the destruction under Amaziah, were led up to the top of their own heights, and then cast down to the awful depths beneath (2 Chron. 25:11, 12). It was a cruel act, and although the
Edomites were Israel's bitterest enemies, and the people against whom Jehovah hath a perpetual hatred, yet without direct Divine sanction, such a mode of stamping out a revolt is indefensible. After the destruction of their renowned and almost impregnable city, Sela, better known as Petra, the cities Teman and Bozrah, became important centers of commerce, and are frequently referred to in the Prophets. It was in the harbors of Edom on the Red Sea, then under Israel, that Solomon built and equipped, a navy, which brought the produce of the south and east to Jerusalem.
Again and again was Edom "impoverished" and her mountains laid waste by Israel, and as often did she resolve to return and build her desolate places, but in vain, for they are "the people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever" (Mal. 1:1-4). They were closely allied to Israel, being the descendants of Esau, Jacob's brother. The seeds of discord sown between the brothers, the founders of the nations of Israel and Edom (Gen. 27), in course of time ripened into open and determined hostility on the part of the Edomites. Their haughty refusal to allow their brethren of Israel to pass through their country out of the Arabian desert, although permission to do so was most courteously requested (Num. 20:14-21), was the first decided act of animosity. Their hatred to the people of Jehovah's choice intensified as time wore on, and at the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, the Edomites voluntarily joined the besiegers, and greatly rejoiced in the opportunity afforded them of wreaking their vengeance on the land and people of Judah. "Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof" (Psa. 137:7) was the bitter cry of the Edomites, as they eagerly hastened to assist in the destruction of Jerusalem. Alas! the Chaldeans needed no such cry to urge them on in executing judgment upon the guilty city. Jehovah says,. "I am very sore displeased with the heathen that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction" (Zech. 1:15). The help the Edomites afforded the Chaldeans in the ever memorable invasion of Judea and successful capture of Jerusalem, with their exultation and triumph on the complete downfall of the kingdom, is the great burden of the prophet Obadiah, and forms the main ground of judgment upon the land and people of Idumea, foretold by the prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and others. On the deportation of Judah to Babylon, the Edomites took possession of Judean territory on the south. The degradation of Judah was complete, and the triumph of the Edomite also, when not only Judea became a mere province of the Roman Empire, being governed by a procurator sent from the imperial city, but when in Jerusalem itself, sat a race of Idumean kings. After the sack and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, Edom or Idumea disappears from the page of history until the time of the Crusaders, who, seeing its importance in a military point of view, entered it on several occasions, and built a pretty strong fortress, ten or twelve miles from Petra. From that time till the year 1812, when the traveler Buckhardt, wandering in the desolate regions of the east, accidentally discovered Petra—the ancient country of Edom was quite unknown. The English people have now been made acquainted with that grand region of departed greatness from the splendid drawings and sketches which successive travelers from the year 1828 have furnished.
Is the cry of the Edomite hushed forever? Will those rock-hewn dwellings ever again be inhabited? Will those mountain fastnesses be occupied, those precipitous cliffs ever be scaled, those awful and gloomy defiles again trod by the descendants of its ancient inhabitants? Yes. And here we turn, gladly turn, to the precious pages of Inspiration, in which the veil is lifted as to Edom's future doom. The prophetic lamp is turned to the Mount of Seir, once more occupied by the people having a "perpetual hatred" to Israel (Ezek. 35:5). It is only of recent date that the fearless children of the Desert could be prevailed upon to pass through the gloomy recesses of Petra, and then only during daylight. The whole district is one shunned and dreaded by the Arabs, who regard it as specially under the ban of the Divine displeasure, and in this they are right (Ezek. 35:9; 25:13). But the might and wisdom of Edom will again be gathered on her mountains, and play her part in the scenes of the coming crisis. From the prophet Daniel, (Dan. 11), we learn that the future king of the North (then occupying the present Asiatic possessions of the Sultan) will assault the nations lying contiguous to the Holy Land, but Edom, Moab, and Ammon will escape out of his hand, while the stronger and more powerful country of "Egypt shall not escape" (Dan. 11:40-43). Why is Edom spared? Why is not full and final judgment then executed upon that proud and bitterly hostile people to Israel? Why? because the sword of Jehovah must first be bathed in the land of Idumea, and the glorious apparel of the Conqueror stained in the blood of its people (Isa. 63:1-6). But besides this awful judgment which the Lord will alone execute (Isa. 63:5) in accomplishing the redemption of His earthly people, there is another reason why Edom escapes the vengeance of the king of the North, or "the Assyrian." The prophets Isaiah (Isa. 11:14) and Ezekiel (Ezek. 25:14) foretold that these very nations, Edom, Moab, and Ammon, were to be destroyed by Israel in the day that her captivity is turned by Jehovah, and so the prophetic lamp reveals their doom.
The discoveries of travelers in late years in the mountains and plains of Edom have brought to light numerous interesting facts bearing upon the history of that people—a history more ancient even than that of Israel's. These ruins "present such a collection of novelties as can be seen nowhere else on this globe." The first historical notice in Scripture of Edom is in Gen. 14:6, where Edom is called " Mount Seir," the name of the progenitor of the Horites, the original inhabitants of the country; the last historical notice of Edom is in Malachi 1, and between these, the first and last books of the Old Testament, the notices regarding it are very numerous. The capital of this very ancient kingdom is one of the grandest sights in the east. What a full and corroborative testimony to the written Word of God is furnished by these grand and solitary ruins. The cliffs and perpendicular rocks, rising from 80 to 250 feet—the ruined temples, with their solitary Corinthian pillars and really handsome architecture and masonry—the theater cut out of the solid rock, and evidently seated to contain from three to four thousand spectators—the numerous chambers, rooms, and recesses cut out of the front of these overhanging cliffs, and other monumental remains too numerous to mention, make Petra one of the grandest spectacles in these eastern lands. Why have those rock-hewn dwellings, tombs, and stately edifices stood amidst the general crash? Empires have risen, flourished, and fallen; but here is a kingdom, hoary with age, whose antiquity is unquestionable, standing before us after a history of nigh 4000 years, a silent, standing and eloquent protest against the unbelief of the nineteenth century. Has God preserved these noble ruins from decay merely to feast the eyes of the traveler with their rare grandeur? Nay, the attacks now so freely hurled against the Pentateuch and Prophets, are sternly rebuked by the incontestible evidence of their Divine inspiration, furnished by the ruins of Petra.
The discovery of this old city from the era of the "Crusades" by the traveler Burckhardt, afterward visited by Laborde, and since fully described by pen and pencil by succeeding explorers, is thus spoken of by Dr. Kitto in his Bible Illustrations:—
"Of the Edomites not even a name remains; and their city has for ages remained broken and desolate. The very site, indeed, was long uncertain, and its place was undetermined in the maps. But, as in the index which closes a book, the various events of centuries are crowded into a few pages: so in these latter days, events that used to be spread over centuries are crowded together into days and years, and the old world history seems tame to the history we live. In this wonderful age events come in ‘multitudes—multitudes to the valley of decision;' and old nations and cities—Egypt, Assyria, Edom; Thebes, Nineveh, Petra—are called forth from their tombs... Edom was called—and Petra answered to her name. There she stands, beautiful in her coat of many colors; yet empty, and void, and waste... Singularly beautiful even in ruin, and with the freshness of youth still upon her brow, the utter desolation in which the daughter of Edom' lies shut up amidst the silence of her mountains, is most impressive, and even affecting. But all this was foreseen and foretold with great distinctness by the prophets; and these fearful denunciations and their exact fulfillment furnish an invulnerable argument for the inspiration of the Scriptures; while the present state of the rich and beautiful region in which Edom dwelt, is a most awful monument of the Lord's displeasure against idolatry and wickedness... With the book ( Malachi) containing this prediction concerning Edom, the roll of Old Testament prophecy closes."