Horites
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The Horites (Template:Langx Ḥōrīm), were a people mentioned in the Torah (Script error: No such module "Bibleverse"., Script error: No such module "Bibleverse".) inhabiting areas around Mount Seir in Canaan (Script error: No such module "Bibleverse".).[1]
Name
According to Archibald Sayce (1915), the Horites have been identified with references in Egyptian inscriptions to Khar (formerly translated as Harri), which concern a southern region of Canaan.[2] More recent scholarship has associated them with the Hurrians.[3]
The rabbinical tradition in Genesis Rabbah 42:6 (300-500 CE) says they are called Horites because "they made themselves independent [free]",[4] which assumes the name is cognate with ḥori meaning "free."[5]
Hebrew Bible
The Horites initially appear in the Torah as being members of a Canaanite coalition, who lived near the Sodom and Gomorrah. The coalition rebelled against Kedorlamer of Elam, who ruled them for twelve years. Kedorlamer attacked and subdued them in response (Script error: No such module "Bibleverse".).
Later, according to Script error: No such module "Bibleverse"., the Horites co-existed and inter-married with the family of Esau, grandson of Abraham through Isaac (Script error: No such module "Bibleverse".). They were eventually brought under the rule of the descendants of Esau, also then known as Edom.
The ancestry of Seir the Horite is not specified. Some say Seir lived around the time of Terah, father of Abraham. He is also said to be a descendant of Hor who is supposed to have lived around the time of Reu and was a descendant of Hivi, son of Canaan son of Ham.
The pre-Edomite Horite chiefs, descendants of Seir, are listed in the Book of Genesis (Script error: No such module "Bibleverse".) and 1 Chronicles (Script error: No such module "Bibleverse".). Two of these chiefs would appear to have been female - Timna and Oholibamah. Timna is infamous for being the progenitor of the Amalekites, the archenemy of the Israelites (Script error: No such module "Bibleverse".).
The chiefs who descended from Esau are listed in Script error: No such module "Bibleverse"..
At some time, certain of these leaders rose to the level of 'kings' over the other chiefs, and the Horite land became known as Edom rather than the land of Seir. One example of these kings is Jobab, son of Zerah, a son of Esau and his wife Basemath, who was Ishmael's daughter (Script error: No such module "Bibleverse".). Another is a 'Temanite', Husham (Script error: No such module "Bibleverse".), a descendant of Esau's son, Teman (Script error: No such module "Bibleverse".).
None of these kings' sons became kings after their fathers died. Apparently, there was no familial royal line whereby sons of these post-Horite kings succeeded to the throne, but rather, some other system was in place by which kings were either chosen or won the right to rule (Script error: No such module "Bibleverse".).
By the time governance of these peoples had been consolidated under kings instead of chiefs, Horites are no longer mentioned as such. According to Script error: No such module "Bibleverse"., the Edomites destroyed the Horites and settled in their land. Theologians Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch considered the Horites to be Rephaim, since the verse explicitly compares the Edomite conquest with the Moabite and Ammonite conquests of the Rephaim.[6]
References
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- ↑ Horites at International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
- ↑ James Orr, "Horites", in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, (1915) page 1421.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ the brackets are in the original text of the translation
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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