South of the Dead Sea, bounded by the rocky desert on the east and
the hot barren Arabah on the west, extends the wild picturesque
range of Mount Seir. It is a land of lofty heights and deep,
almost inaccessible valleys, the home of the hunter and the nomad.
From a few copious springs there issue clear, refreshing brooks,
which run rippling through the deep ravines, but soon lose
themselves in their hot, gravelly beds. A few miles further on
they emerge and again disappear, as they approach the borders of
the hot, thirsty wilderness that surrounds Mount Seir on every
side. Here in early times lived the Edomites, a nomadic people who
established themselves in this borderland of Palestine long before
the Hebrews gained a permanent foothold in the land of Canaan. The
name, Edom, is found in an inscription of a king of the eighth
Egyptian Dynasty,
In the Biblical narrative, Esau evidently is the traditional
ancestor of the Edomites, even as Jacob figures as the father of
the twelve tribes. One of the aims of these narratives, it seems
to many scholars, is to explain why the Israelites, the younger
people, who settled latest in Palestine, ultimately possessed the
land and conquered the Edomites.
The portraits of Esau and Jacob are remarkably true to the
characteristics of these two rival nations. They are also faithful
to human nature as we find it to-day. Of these two brothers which,
on the whole, is the more attractive? Which resembles his father
and which his mother? (Read the accounts of their lives, Gen.
24-27.) What noble virtues does Esau possess? What was his great
fault? Reckless men or drifters with generous impulses but with no
definite purpose, of whom gypsies and hoboes are extreme types, are
found in every age and society. Why is it that men of the type of
Esau so often in time become criminals?