Jobab ben Zerah ( ''Yōḇāḇ ben-Zerah'') was a king of ancient

Edom Edom (; Edomite language, Edomite: ; , lit.: "red"; Akkadian language, Akkadian: , ; Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom that stretched across areas in the south of present-day Jordan and Israel. Edom and the Edomi ...

, according to Genesis 36. He succeeded Bela ben Beor in the apparently elective kingship of the Edomites. He ruled from

Bozrah Busaira (; also Busayra, Busairah or Buseirah) is a town in Tafilah Governorate, Jordan, located between the towns of Tafilah (Tophel) and Shoubak and closer to the latter. Bozrah ( ; also Botsra, Botzrah, Buzrak) is a Hebrew Bible, biblical cit ...

. He was succeeded by Husham. Jobab has traditionally often been identified with the biblical figure

Job Work, labor (labour in Commonwealth English), occupation or job is the intentional activity people perform to support the needs and desires of themselves, other people, or organizations. In the context of economics, work can be seen as the huma ...

. Job was said to live in the " land of Uz", which was where Edom was located. Job was one of the wealthiest people in the world, and this wealth could easily be explained with his status as royalty. The book of Jasher stated that the Edomites had disallowed themselves from choosing a descendant of Esau for kingship. Jobab began to reign after Bela's 30-year rule.

Identity as Job

The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, identifies Job as Jobab. Also, the oldest English-language Catholic Bible, the Douay-Rheims, identifies Job as Jobab. The Challoner Revision of the Douay-Rheims speculates that Job could have written the book of Job, but the original 1610 Douay-Rheims says that Job himself wrote the book in the

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

language, which was then translated into

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

Moses In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...

. This claim could be supported by St. Jerome, who wrote that the book of Job was written in "

and Arabic and sometimes

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

Church Slavonic Church Slavonic is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia. The ...

versions of Book of Job and Russian Synodal Bible include a postscript in which Jobab is identified with Job, the anonymous author of the postscript refers to a "Syriac book". Many Bible scholars, such as Douglas Wilson, agree with the identification, though Methodist theologian Adam Clarke maintained a different position. David J. Gibson in his book ''Whence Came the Hyksos, Kings of Egypt'' defends the identification based on numerous passages from the

Book of Job The Book of Job (), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The language of the Book of Job, combining post-Babylonia ...

, personal names, geography, occupation, and contemporaries.

External links

Kings of Egypt

References

{{Authority control Kings of Edom Job (biblical figure) Book of Genesis people