Mount Seir is mentioned for the first time in Genesis xxxvi:9, as the dwelling place of the Edomites. Seir means "shaggy," an allusion to the rugged character of Idumea. The Edomites and Israelites were descendants of Abraham; Edom from Esau and Israel from Jacob. God told Israel not to forget their relationship to the descendants of Esau. But the Edomites hated Israel. Beautiful were the words which Moses addressed to Edom, when he sent messengers from Kadesh. "Thus saith thy brother Israel, thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us, how our fathers went down to Egypt and dwelt in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians evil entreated us, and our fathers; and when we cried unto the Lord, He heard our voice, and sent an angel, and brought us forth out of Egypt, and behold we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border; let us pass, I pray thee through thy land" (Numbers xx:14-17). The Edomites rejected this loving word and forced the Israelites to take another way. More than once did they attack from their mountains the people Israel and slew them. "He did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever" (Amos i:11). Most scathing is Edom's arraignment through the prophet Obadiah. "For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off forever. In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast one of them. But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress" (Obad. verses 9-14). Theirs was a perpetual hatred as God speaks here through Ezekiel. Judgment is therefore announced, a judgment which should make their land desolate and extinguish them as a nation. "I will make thee most desolate." "I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate." "Thus will I make mount Seir most desolate." "I will make thee perpetual desolation, and thy cities shall not return." They were a proud, a boasting people, defying God and hating His chosen people. "Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and have multiplied your words against me; I have heard them." And this threatened judgment has fallen upon Edom's land. Their capital was the great rock city Petra, called Selah in the Bible (2 Kings xiv:7).