{"id":72457,"date":"2020-03-31T15:43:55","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T12:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=72457"},"modified":"2020-03-31T15:43:55","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T12:43:55","slug":"the-ongoing-feud-with-the-edomites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-ongoing-feud-with-the-edomites\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ongoing Feud With The Edomites"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"72457","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":38552,"related_cahpter":"449","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"A conflict that goes back to the womb\r\n\r\n","content":"

In II Kings, the actual destruction of Jerusalem is attributed to Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guards, who successfully accomplished his mission.Psalms 137 and Jeremiah 49 tell us another bona fide account of the Edomites arriving in the area of Judah during the siege, settling the southern Hebron hills, and serving as auxiliaries to Nebuzaradan’s army of destruction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The most explicit source of this tradition is Psalms 137, composed from the perspective of the Babylonian exiles: “By the rivers of Babylon, where we sat and indeed wept as we remembered Zion.” This psalm is best known for the exiles’ oath: “If I forget you, O Jerusalem….” But the subsequent verses are not nearly as well-known:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRemember, O Lord, what the Edomites did on the day of Jerusalem’s fall, when they said: Destroy! Destroy it to its foundations! Daughter of Babylonia, doomed to destruction, praised is he who repays you, visiting upon you what you visited upon us. Praised is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rock!\u201d (137:7-9).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The exiled Jews swear revenge against the Edomites, who rejoiced at the fall of Jerusalem and made sure it was razed to the ground. To comprehend the enormity of this rage, we must understand the history of Edomite-Israelite relations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The connection between these two nations began, of course, with the struggle between Jacob and Esau in their mother’s womb (according to Jewish tradition, Esau is the progenitor of Edom) and the Biblical story of the Israelites asking to cross through Edomite land (Num. 20) and being refused.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Centuries later, the two rivals met again. King David set out to conquer Edom and take its copper mines and trade routes. From the little information the verses offer us, we can ascertain that David’s army massacred the Edomites, wiping out every male. Only Hadad, an Edomite prince, managed to escape to Egypt, where he was granted political asylum (II Sam. 8:14). The Edomites constantly attempted to regain their independence and remove Judah’s yoke.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the most shocking events in the history of this fraught relationship occurred during the reign of King Amaziah of Judah. Scripture describes how Amaziah killed ten thousand Edomites and led another ten thousand captives to the rocky cliffs atop the Edomite city of Selah (possibly today’s Petra), where he cast them down to their deaths (II Chr. 25:12). This was no act of war, but an act of vengeance. We can imagine how the Edomites preserved the memory of this atrocity from generation to generation, until they were finally presented with the opportunity to take revenge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lau, Binyamin. <\/span>Jeremiah: The Fate of a Prophet<\/span><\/em>. Maggid Books, 2013. \u201cWho Destroyed Jerusalem: Different Spiritual Traditions\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":69252,"id":69252,"title":"jer-lau2","filename":"jer-lau2.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/jer-lau2.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/running-a-gauntlet-of-pain\/jer-lau2\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer-lau2","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":69251,"date":"2020-01-27 21:59:05","modified":"2020-01-27 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