Mount Seir

Mount Seir is the highland where Esau settled, a mountain range along the east side of the Arabah Valley in the land of Edom. It extends south toward the Gulf of Aqaba, and its modern name is Jebel esh-Shera, also written Jabal al-Shara. Scripture speaks of "the land of Seir, the country of Edom" (Genesis 32:3) and of "Mount Seir" (Genesis 36:8; Deuteronomy 2:5).

The Horites and Esau

Kedorlaomer and his allied kings defeated the Horites in "the area of Mount Seir" (Genesis 14:5-6). Esau moved to a land far from his brother Jacob and "settled in the area of Mount Seir" (Genesis 36:6, 8), where Genesis calls him "the father of the Edomites" (Genesis 36:9). His descendants later drove the Horites out and settled in their place (Deuteronomy 2:12, 22).

Israel passes by Mount Seir

The journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea was eleven days "by way of Mount Seir" (Deuteronomy 1:2), and the Amorites of the hills routed Israel from Seir all the way to Hormah (Deuteronomy 1:44). The LORD told Israel to pass through Esau's territory without provoking him, because He had given Mount Seir to Esau and Israel would receive "not even a footprint" of it (Deuteronomy 2:4-5). Israel was to pay in silver for food and water, and turned away from the Arabah road from Elath and Ezion-geber (Deuteronomy 2:6, 8). Edom refused Israel passage along the King's Highway (Numbers 20:14-21). Joshua later recalls that the LORD gave Esau Mount Seir "to possess" (Joshua 24:4).

The LORD from Seir

Two poems picture the LORD coming from Seir: He "dawned upon us from Seir" (Deuteronomy 33:2) and "marched from the land of Edom" (Judges 5:4). Some scholars read these verses and Joshua 11:17 as reaching west of the Arabah, while Nelson Glueck, who excavated throughout Transjordan, argued that the name first meant only the land east of it and spread west with the Edomites after the exile.

Seir and Judah

The war with Ammon and Moab came in the days of Jehoshaphat (870-848 BC), when men of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir came against Judah, and Ammon and Moab turned on the inhabitants of Mount Seir before destroying one another (2 Chronicles 20:22-23). Amaziah (796-767 BC) later struck down 10,000 men of Seir in the Valley of Salt and brought home the gods of the Seirites, bowing before them and burning sacrifices to them (2 Chronicles 25:11, 14).

The prophets

The LORD told Ezekiel to "set your face against Mount Seir" because of an "ancient hatred" and the boast that "These two nations and countries will be ours," and Mount Seir and all Edom would become a desolation (Ezekiel 35:2, 5, 10, 15). Obadiah likewise speaks against Edom's "dwellers in the clefts of the rocks whose habitation is the heights" (Obadiah 1:3).

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Seir in Egyptian texts

Egyptian records know the Shasu as West Semitic nomads of Sinai and the Transjordan. In a 2019 article in Dotawo, Titus Kennedy notes that texts of Ramesses II (1279-1213 BC), Merneptah (1213-1203 BC) and Ramesses III refer to Shasu in the Edom area. A list in the temple at Amara West in Nubia, built by Ramesses II, records "The Land of the Shasu Sꜥrr." In a 2021 article in Entangled Religions, Racheli Shalomi-Hen notes that many scholars read this name as the biblical Seir, though she adds that the identification is "far from being certain." Shalomi-Hen also reports one scholar's view that Seir was probably a later addition to the list. Kennedy adds that part of this list may have been copied from the earlier list at Soleb, built under Amenhotep III (1386-1349 BC), which has its own page (Soleb Inscription). James Henry Breasted's 1906 translation of Papyrus Harris I has Ramesses III say, "I destroyed the people of Seir, of the tribes of the Shasu."

Where the range lies

Petra lies within the range, and Israel came to Mount Hor "near the border of the land of Edom" (Numbers 20:22-23). A different Mount Seir, a landmark on Judah's border near Kiriath-jearim and Chesalon, shares the name. The Nabataeans later overran the old Edomite land and made Petra their capital.