Idumea

Biblical Text

In the Korean New Revised Version (Gaeyeok Gaejeong), the place name "Idumea" appears once, in Mark 3:8. The passage records that when Jesus withdrew to the Sea of Galilee, a great multitude came to Him from Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. The parallel accounts in Matthew 4:25 and Luke 6:17 omit Idumea, so the name appears only in Mark.

The King James Version also renders "Edom" as "Idumea" in passages such as Isaiah 34:5 and Ezekiel 35:15. The Korean New Revised Version translates all of these verses as "Edom."

Background

Idumea is a transliteration of the Greek Idoumaia, which derives from the Hebrew place name Edom. Edom originally referred to the hill country south and southeast of the Dead Sea. From around the time of the Babylonian exile and afterward, however, Edomites moved northward and settled in southern Judah, in the area around Hebron. The Nabataeans are commonly identified as the people who displaced the Edomites. In the Greek and Roman periods, this region was called Idumea.

In the late second century BC, during the intertestamental period, the Hasmonean dynasty of Judea conquered Idumea. The Jewish historian Josephus records that the Idumeans were then circumcised and came to observe the Jewish law. Herod the Great of the New Testament era is known to have been of Idumean descent, since his father Antipater was an Idumean.

Significance in the Broader Biblical Narrative

In the Old Testament, Edom is descended from Esau, the brother of Jacob. The Edomites were a kindred people to Israel, yet they were long in conflict with it. Obadiah addresses the judgment that Edom would face, and the words of Malachi 1:2–3, "I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau," are quoted in Romans 9:13.

Amos 9:11–12 declares that the restored tabernacle of David will "possess the remnant of Edom." Acts 15:16–17 quotes this passage in a form close to the Greek translation, reading it to mean that "the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles," and uses it as a basis for the mission to the Gentiles. Some interpreters read the scene in Mark 3:8, in which people from the former land of Edom come to Jesus, in light of this theme.

Interpretations and Issues

• Identity of the crowd: The text does not specify who the people from Idumea were. Some view them as Jews living in Idumea or as Idumeans who had embraced Judaism; others take the reference to mean that reports about Jesus had spread beyond the borders of Judea.
• Herod and Esau: Sermons sometimes interpret Herod's attempt to kill the infant Jesus as a continuation of the "conflict between Esau and Jacob." This, however, is an interpretive connection, not something the text states directly.
• Relationship to Edom: Idumea and the Edom of the Old Testament share the same linguistic root. Their geographical extents differ, however, so the two names cannot simply be treated as designating the same place.