(‘edôm) means “reddish,” and the parallel term Seir (sē'îr) “rough,” probably the brush in the mountains. They designate a landscape or ethnicity south of ¶ the Dead Sea: in the first instance, to the southeast, between Wādī l-Ḥasā and the Gulf of Aqaba, but also in the Wādī l-'Araba and the southern Negeb.
“Seir” occurs first in the Amarna Letters (Amarna; EA 288.26; mid-14th cent.) and in a place list of Ramses II (mid-13th cent.), “Edom” in a letter from the eighth year of Merneptah (1216), in each case in connection with Š3św-bedouins.…