Kadmonites
1:
KADMONITES [Heb qadmōnı̂ (קַדְמֹנִי)]. One of ten groups of people found in a list of pre-Israelite inhabitants of the land promised to Abraham (Gen 15:19). Literally translated the name would be “Easterners.” Koehler and Baumgartner (HALAT 3: 1002) identify this group with the bĕnê qedem “people of the East” (Gen 29:1; Judg 6:3, 33; 7:12; 8:10; 1 Kgs 5:10; Isa 11:14; Jer 49:28; Ezek 25:4, 10; Job 1:3). The latter “ethnographic collective name” is used “for the Syro-Arabian desert, mainly nomads or semi-nomads” (GTTOT, 13). While the translational equivalents of these two expressions are nearly identical and the expressions arise from the same root qdm, “east”, it is not certain that they refer to the same people. Since the term “Kadmonites” is only found in Gen 15:19, the best indication of its meaning can be determined from its placement within the list. Ishida (1979: 483–84) suggests that the list of nations in Gen 15:19–21 is geographically arranged from S to N and reflects the extent of the Davidic empire. He thinks that the first three names of the list (Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites) “represent the foreign elements in the South whose absorption into the tribe of Judah was complete by the time of David” (1979: 484).
Bibliography
Clements, R. 1967. Abraham and David, Genesis 15 and its Meaning for Israelite Tradition. SBT n.s. 5. London.
Ishida, T. 1979. The Structure and Historical Implications of the Lists of Pre-Israelite Nations. Bib 60: 461–90.
Stephen A. Reed
Freedman, D. N. (1996, c1992). The Anchor Bible Dictionary (4:4). New York: Doubleday.
2:
Kadmonites — Orientals, the name of a Canaanitish tribe which inhabited the north-eastern part of Palestine in the time of Abraham (Gen. 15:19). Probably they were identical with the “children of the east,” who inhabited the country between Palestine and the Euphrates.
Easton, M. (1996, c1897). Easton's Bible dictionary. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
3:
KADMONITES Semitic tribe whose land was promised to Abraham’s descendants (Gn 15:19). The name of the tribe is the same as the Hebrew adjective “eastern” and suggests that references to peoples or lands of the east (Gn 25:6; Jgs 8:10; 1 Kgs 4:30; Jb 1:3) may be synonymous with the tribal name.
Elwell, W. A., & Comfort, P. W. (2001). Tyndale Bible dictionary. Tyndale reference library (767). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
4:
KAD´MONITE (kadʹmon-it). A tribe mentioned only in Gen. 15:19 as one of the nations to be dispossessed by Israel. As an adjective the name means “eastern,” or “ancient.” Quite probably, therefore, the Kadmonites were “bene-kedem” (Judg. 6:33, “sons of the east”), i.e., tribes who roamed in the barren areas E and SE of Palestine. w.h.; m.f.u.
Unger, M. F., Harrison, R. K., Vos, H. F., Barber, C. J., & Unger, M. F. (1988). The new Unger's Bible dictionary. Revision of: Unger's Bible dictionary. 3rd ed. c1966. (Rev. and updated ed.). Chicago: Moody Press.
5:
KADMONITES. A people whose name, qaḏmōnı̂, is identical in form with the adjective qaḏmōnı̂ ‘eastern’ (e.g. Ezk. 47:18), and for this reason may simply mean ‘Easterners’ and be another designation for the benê-qedem *’(children of the) East’. The word occurs but once as a name however (Gn. 15:19, with the article), in the list of peoples to be given to Abraham’s seed. It may therefore well be the name of a tribe. t.c.m.
Wood, D. R. W., Wood, D. R. W., & Marshall, I. H. (1996, c1982, c1962). New Bible Dictionary. Includes index. (electronic ed. of 3rd ed.) (641). Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.
6:
Kadmonites (kadʹmuh-nīts; Heb., ‘easterners’), a tribe or people living in terrain west of the Euphrates River. In Gen. 15:19 they are paired with other nomadic people, the Kenites and Kenizzites, whose lands were promised to Abraham’s descendants. The name may reflect simply the direction of their territory from the standpoint of the biblical writer in Palestine.
Achtemeier, P. J., Harper & Row, P., & Society of Biblical Literature. (1985). Harper's Bible dictionary. Includes index. (1st ed.) (522). San Francisco: Harper & Row.
7:
Kadmonites (Heb. qaḏmōnɩ̂)
A people listed among the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Canaan (Gen. 15:19). The name (“Easterners”) probably represents the same people as those called the “sons of Qedem” (NRSV “people of the east”; e.g., Gen. 29:1; Judg. 6:3, 33; Job 1:3).
Freedman, D. N., Myers, A. C., & Beck, A. B. (2000). Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible (760). Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans.
