Person
Esau (Edom)
Also called Edom, Edomite
Mentioned in 151 verses across 24 books, first in Deuteronomy 2:4. The verses below are the ones linked to this person (the Theographic dataset, with our sourced corrections).
In these stories
In the Bible
All 6 verses in Deuteronomy, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Deuteronomy
- Deuteronomy 2:4
and command the people: ‘You will pass through the territory of your brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, so you must be very careful.
- Deuteronomy 2:5
Do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even a footprint, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as his possession.
- Deuteronomy 2:8
So we passed by our brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We turned away from the Arabah road, which comes up from Elath and Ezion-geber, and traveled along the road of the Wilderness of Moab.
- Deuteronomy 2:12
The Horites used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau drove them out. They destroyed the Horites from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the land that the LORD gave them as their possession.)
- Deuteronomy 2:22
just as He had done for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them. They drove them out and have lived in their place to this day.
- Deuteronomy 2:29
just as the descendants of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for us, until we cross the Jordan into the land that the LORD our God is giving us.”
Events
Events the dataset lists Esau (Edom) as taking part in. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.
- c. 1836 BCBirth of Jacob and Esau
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. The entry is for the name and can describe more than one person who bore it. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
Hairy, Rebekah’s first-born twin son (Gen. 25:25). The name of Edom, “red”, was also given to him from his conduct in connection with the red lentil “pottage” for which he sold his birthright (30, 31). The circumstances connected with his birth foreshadowed the enmity which afterwards subsisted between the twin brothers and the nations they founded (25:22, 23, 26). In process of time Jacob, following his natural bent, became a shepherd; while Esau, a “son of the desert,” devoted himself to the perilous and toilsome life of a huntsman. On a certain occasion, on returning from the chase, urged by the cravings of hunger, Esau sold his birthright to his brother, Jacob, who thereby obtained the covenant blessing (Gen. 27:28, 29, 36; Heb. 12:16, 17). He afterwards tried to regain what he had so recklessly parted with, but was defeated in his attempts through the stealth of his brother (Gen. 27:4, 34, 38).
At the age of forty years, to the great grief of his parents, he married (Gen. 26:34, 35) two Canaanitish maidens, Judith, the daughter of Beeri, and Bashemath, the daughter of Elon. When Jacob was sent away to Padan-aram, Esau tried to conciliate his parents (Gen. 28:8, 9) by marrying his cousin Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael. This led him to cast in his lot with the Ishmaelite tribes; and driving the Horites out of Mount Seir, he settled in that region. After some thirty years’ sojourn in Padan-aram Jacob returned to Canaan, and was reconciled to Esau, who went forth to meet him (33:4). Twenty years after this, Isaac their father died, when the two brothers met, probably for the last time, beside his grave (35:29). Esau now permanently left Canaan, and established himself as a powerful and wealthy chief in the land of Edom (q.v.).
Long after this, when the descendants of Jacob came out of Egypt, the Edomites remembered the old quarrel between the brothers, and with fierce hatred they warred against Israel.