Giacobbe diventa Israele

ESAU AS EDOM

The identification of Esau with Edom (cf. Gen. 36:1, 43) is often referred to in the Bible and is found in all the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha of the Second Temple period and naturally in talmudic and midrashic sources too. *Amalek, the eternal enemy of Israel, is one of his descendants. Since the end of the Second Temple, the identification of *Haman the Agagite (Esth. 3:1; 8:3, 5; 9:24) as "a descendant of the seed of Amalek" (an identification first found explicitly in Jos., Ant., 11:20, apparently on the basis of the connection between the name "Agagite" and *Agag, king of Amalek: I Sam. 15:8–9, 20, 32–33, and cf. Num. 24:7) served as a fertile source for many homilies connecting the stories of the Book of Esther with Esau. Most of these homilies are naturally condemnatory, but there occur some with a slightly different tone, such as "R. Ḥanina said, whoever says that the Holy One is indulgent will be punished. The truth is that He is patient but ultimately claims His due; Jacob caused Esau to utter one cry [Gen. 27:34], and where was he requited? In Shushan the capital, as it is stated [Esth. 4:1] 'and he cried with a loud and a bitter cry'" (Gen. R. 67:4).

ESAU AS ROME

The identification of Esau with Rome is not found in the literature of the Second Temple period; attempts at detecting it in the Ezra Apocalypse (IV Ezra 6:7–8 and in Jos. Ant.) and in the Targum of *Onkelos to the Pentateuch have no real basis. The identification appears first, apparently, in an aggadah of the period following the *Bar Kokhba War (132–135 C.E.): "It has been taught: Judah b. Ilai said: My teacher Baruch (or, "blessed be he" – see later) used to say 'The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau [Gen. 27:22]; the voice of Jacob cries out at what the hands of Esau did to him at Bethar'" (TJ, Ta'an. 4:8, 68d; Gen. R. 65:21, et al. – "Baruch my teacher" may be a cryptic reference to *Akiva). The identification is also found in a conversation between Akiva and *Tinneius Rufus (Tanḥ. Terumah, 3) and is common in the mouths of the scholars of the age following the Hadrianic persecutions (Gen. R. 67:7 – Yose b. Ḥalafta; Tanh. B., Deut. supplement 5 (p.5) – Simeon b. Gamaliel). Thereafter it became very widespread (see the anonymous homily in Sif. Deut. 41, ed. Finkelstein, p. 85). In general Esau is referred to in a derogatory vein but here too there are exceptions such as: "For the three tears that Esau shed [Gen. 27:38], Israel suffered in three wars, as it says [Ps. 80:6]: Thou hast fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in large measure" (shalish, ARN2 47, 130).

EDOM AS ROME

The identification of Edom with Rome is never found in the literature of the Second Temple period. It appears for the first time close to the Bar Kokhba revolt (cf. Margolioth, p. 610/2). R. Meir even connects it with the verse (Isa. 21:11), "The vision of Dumah" = the vision of Dome (דומי = רומי, Rome, TJ, Ta'an. 1:1, 64a see ed. princ.); also "The re'emim [wild-oxen] shall come down with them" (Isa. 34:7) is read as "The Romans shall come down with them" (PdRK 7, 11, ed. Mandelbaum, p. 134). The previous verses (5–6) speak of Edom (cf. also Targ. Jon. ed. Sperber, Isa. 9, "The streams thereof shall be turned into pitch": "The streams of Rome shall be turned into pitch"). Many scholars are of the opinion that the source of this identification lies in the connection between *Herod, a descendant of Edomite proselytes, whose evil rule over Judea left a harsh impression and the intensification of Roman rule in Judea, especially as Herod was virtually a vassal of Rome. However these conjectures cannot be accepted. Not only are substantial proofs lacking, but the identification appears only in the second quarter of the second century C.E., more than four generations after the death of Herod. It seems, therefore, that its source is to be sought elsewhere.

In the Bible Edom is described as the eternal enemy of Israel (and Judah, Amos 1:11; Ezek. 35:5) who not only always oppressed Israel, but at the time of the destruction of the First Temple took advantage of the situation and seized control of parts of Judah (Ezek. 25:12; 35:5, 10, 2; Obad. 11–16), and it is hinted that Edom also took part in the destruction of Jerusalem (Ps. 137:7; Obad. 11) and even in that of the Temple itself (Obad. 16). In consequence, during the Second Temple period there spread a belief that it was actually the Edomites who burned the First Temple (I Esdras 4:45; Ethiopian Enoch 89:66), and also interfered with the building of the Second Temple (ibid., 72). Hence the intense enmity toward Edom which grew stronger in the course of time (Ecclus. 50:25–26), until the conquest of Edom and its conversion to Judaism in the time of John Hyrcanus – a conquest which is the background to the descriptions of the wars of Jacob and his sons with Esau and his sons in the Book of Jubilees (37–38) and in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (Judah 9). Edom is even compared to a black boar (I En. 89:12, 42–43, 49, 66; Jub. 37:20, 24). The intense hatred of Rome after the cruel crushing of the revolt of the Diaspora in the time of Trajan and still more after the harsh suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt and the decrees of persecution in Hadrian's days; the fact that Rome, like Edom, had destroyed the Temple; the similarity of Edom, compared to a pig, with Rome, for whom the pig (or, more correctly, the sow) was a most important symbol; the allusions to Edom dwelling on high like an eagle and the fact that the eagle, too, was an important Roman symbol; and perhaps finally even the similarity to the name Rome and Romans in several verses that speak of Edom, Seir, and Esau – all these apparently combined to cause the application to Rome of the biblical references to Edom, the eternal enemy of Israel.

At the end of the tannaitic period, and still more in the amoraic, the identification became very widespread, and the overwhelming majority of homilies about Edom speak explicitly of Rome. Thus it was stated that Rome was founded by the children of Esau, and Rome was identified as one of the cities of the chiefs of Esau enumerated at the end of Genesis 36 (these identifications occur not only in the Midrashim and the Talmuds but also in the Palestinian *Targums of the Torah and in the Targums to Lamentations and Esther). At a still later period the term became a synonym for Christian Rome and thence for Christianity in general, and allusions were even found to *Constantinople among the cities of Edom (and see *Caesarea).