The second Hebrew people with which we have to do, the Bene-Ammon, the sons of Ammon or Ammonites, of whose putative descent from Lot’s younger daughter we have already spoken, seems to have been a genuine desert race. The land east of Jordan being occupied by Moab in the south and Israel in the north, there certainly were but few districts fit for tillage left for them. Nevertheless, attempts were not wanting on their part to gain possession of the east side of Jordan. The Edomites, the third of these Hebrew peoples, were those with whom Israel came most into contact. The close relations and frequent intermixtures which took place between Edomite and Israelite clans find expression in the legend that makes Esau, the progenitor of the tribe, the brother of Jacob and, like him, the son of Isaac of Beersheba. Esau is really the name of a god, and we meet with it again in Phœnician mythology in its Hellenised form of Usoos. The divine nature of Esau is also betrayed in the fact that in the Elohistic text it is he, while in the Yahvistic text, it is God, who meets Jacob at Penuel (Genesis xxxii. 31, 33, _seq._). The name of this divinity was probably in old times the name of the clan that worshipped him. At any rate, we never meet with Esau as the collective name of this people; it is invariably Edom. But Edom itself is the name of a half-forgotten god, as is evident from the proper name Obed-Edom. The Edomites were no more a nation of pure Hebrew blood than the Israelites. They sprang from the fusion of Hebrew immigrants with the population that already occupied the country, on the one hand, and with Arab tribes, on the other. And these two elements which the Edomite race absorbed must have retained their distinctive character to a comparatively late period, for on no other supposition can we explain the extent and definiteness of the information which has come down to us on the subject. In the west, the Edomites spread from the southern margin of the Dead Sea and from the Nachal ha ’Arabum (Brook of the Arab Bushes, now the Wady Alachsi) to the Gulf of Akabah. In the west and north they forfeited much of their nationality. For at one time they occupied the whole of what was afterwards southern Judah, though intermixed with Arab clans. The Edomites united with Judah later--probably constrained to do so by their geographical situation--and possessed the hegemony in the time of David. The capital of this Edomite district was the ancient city of Hebron. Its union with Judah was naturally accompanied by a corresponding loss to Edom, which from that time forward passed for less powerful than Israel in those parts, whereas, in earlier times, being united under the rule of kings, it had been superior to the kingless state of Israel, divided up into tribes, each eager in pursuit of its personal ends. The national monarchy of Israel is no sooner consolidated than it is strong enough to subdue Edom.