02.18. The cost of pride

The cost of pride

Edom was descended from Esau, Israel from Jacob, which means that Edom and Israel were brother nations. Edom occupied the land between the southern tip of the Dead Sea and the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, the north-eastern arm of the Red Sea. In the west theland spread towards the dry southern part of Israel known as the Arabah, and in the east towards the desert of Arabia. In between was a mountainous region where most people lived. The chief cities were Sela, Bozrah and Teman, and the chief mountain Mt Seir. An important road known as the King’s Highway ran north from the Red Sea through Edom, Moab and Ammon to Syria. The Israelites under Moses asked Edom for permission to use this road on their journey to Canaan, but Edom refused, forcing the Israelites to make a long detour.¹ Edom developed a reputation for arrogance, in particular towards Israel, and ill-feeling between the two countries expressed itself repeatedly over the following centuries.

There were two main reasons for Edom’s arrogance. One was the wisdom teachers for which it was famous, the other the strong defence system it had built throughout its rugged mountains. It believed no one could outwit or overthrow it; but defiance of God finally brought about its overthrow.²

Among the conquerors of Edom were the Arab tribal people, the Nabateans, who, in the third century BC, built the amazing rock city of Petra to replace the Edomites’ Sela.³ In New Testament times the Nabatean kingdom extended over the western part of Arabia and north to Damascus, the capital of Syria. It was during this time of Nabatean rule that the newly converted Paul escaped from Damascus in a basket. The ‘Arabia’ where he spent some of his earliest days as a Christian is more likely to refer to the Nabatean kingdom than to present-day Saudi Arabia.

1. Numbers 20:14-21 2. Jeremiah 49:7; Jeremiah 49:20; Jeremiah 49:22; Amos 1:11-12; Obadiah 1:1-4; Obadiah 1:8-9; cf. 2 Chronicles 25:11-12 3. Petra is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Sela and means ‘rock’.

4. Acts 9:22-25; 2 Corinthians 11:32-33; Galatians 1:17

The mountains of Edom near Petra, Jordan