The occupants of Edom during practically the whole period of Biblical history were the Bedouin tribes which claimed 1 A curious etymological speculation connects the name with the story of Esau's begging for Jacob's pottage, Gen.
They believed that Cain derived his existence from the superior power, and Abel from the inferior power, and that in this respect he was the first of a line which included Esau, Korah, the Sodomites and Judas Iscariot.
After the death of his mother, when he was forty years old, he married Rebekah the Aramaean, by whom after twenty years of married life he became the father of Esau and Jacob.
See further Ishmael, and note that the pair Isaac and Ishmael correspond to Abraham and Lot, Jacob and Esau.
Jacob and his twin brother Esau are the eponyms of the Israelites and Edomites.