4. EDOM.--_Thus saith Jehovah: Because of three crimes of Edom and because of four I will not turn It back; for that he pursued with the sword his brother_, who cannot be any other than Israel, _corrupted his natural feelings_--literally _his bowels of mercies--and kept aye fretting_[230] _his anger, and his passion he watched_--like a fire, or _paid heed_ to it--_for ever._[231] _But I will send fire upon Teman_--the _South_ Region belonging to Edom--_and it shall devour the palaces of Boṣrah_--the Edomite Boṣrah, south-east of Petra.[232] The Assyrians had already compelled Edom to pay tribute.[233] The objections to the authenticity of this oracle are more serious than those in the case of the oracle on Tyre. It has been remarked[234] that before the Jewish Exile so severe a tone could not have been adopted by a Jew against Edom, who had been mostly under the yoke of Judah, and not leniently treated. What were the facts? Joab subdued Edom for David with great cruelty.[235] Jewish governors were set over the conquered people, and this state of affairs seems to have lasted, in spite of an Edomite attempt against Solomon,[236] till 850. In Jehoshaphat's reign, 873-850, _there was no king of Edom, a deputy was king_, who towards 850 joined the kings of Judah and Israel in an invasion of Moab through his territory.[237] But, soon after this invasion and perhaps in consequence of its failure, Edom revolted from Joram of Judah (849-842), who unsuccessfully attempted to put down the revolt.[238] The Edomites appear to have remained independent for fifty years at least. Amaziah of Judah (797-779) smote them,[239] but not it would seem into subjection, for, according to the Chronicler, Uzziah had to win back Elath for the Jews after Amaziah's death.[240] The history, therefore, of the relations of Judah and Edom before the time of Amos was of such a kind as to make credible the existence in Judah at that time of the feeling about Edom which inspires this oracle. Edom had shown just the vigilant, implacable hatred here described. But was the right to blame them for it Judah's, who herself had so persistently waged war, with confessed cruelty, against Edom? Could a Judæan prophet be just in blaming Edom and saying nothing of Judah? It is true that in the fifty years of Edom's independence--the period, we must remember, from which Amos seems to draw the materials of all his other charges--there may have been events to justify this oracle as spoken by him; and our ignorance of that period is ample reason why we should pause before rejecting the oracle so dogmatically as Wellhausen does. But we have at least serious grounds for suspecting it. To charge Edom, whom Judah has conquered and treated cruelly, with restless hate towards Judah seems to fall below that high impartial tone which prevails in the other oracles of this section. The charge was much more justifiable at the time of the Exile, when