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Hadar of Edom Who Grew Too Tall for Gold

King Hadar climbs from poverty to a palace, then sneers at silver, while Heaven measures mercy on mountains and judgment in the deep.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Last Name on the List
  2. Wealth Without Rejoicing
  3. Mountains and the Deep
  4. Called Great, Made Small
  5. The Sneer and the Scales
Hadar of Edom Who Grew Too Tall for Gold Click for full size

The Last Name on the List

Hadar sits at the end of Edom's king list the way a last coin sits at the bottom of a purse. Bela died. Jobab reigned. Jobab died. Husham reigned. The Torah walks through a dry procession until Baal Hanan's son, ruling from Pahu, married to Mehetabel daughter of Matred (Genesis 36:39).

Most translations stop there. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not. Hadar labored with perseverance and vigilance. He climbed from obscurity. He built a palace. Silver and gold piled up until the rooms shone and servants walked softly on expensive floors.

Then something broke in him. He turned lofty in his heart and said, What is silver and what is gold? It sounds, for a breath, like wisdom. It is not. It is a man so swollen that nothing he once wanted can still impress him, not even the gift that made him king.

Wealth Without Rejoicing

Judaism has a sharp eye for this corruption. Who is rich? He who rejoices in his portion. Hadar had everything and rejoiced in nothing. The contempt that wealth breeds when it forgets its Giver is a quieter plague than famine, harder to treat, because the patient still eats from gold plates while calling the meal worthless.

He did not renounce treasure to feed the poor. He renounced the meaning of treasure so that no one, not even Heaven, could claim his gratitude. The Targumist places him last on purpose. This is how a kingdom dies: not from empty storehouses, but from a king who cannot bow to the Source of full ones.

Edom's line ends with a sneer dressed as philosophy. The sneer is the real inheritance, heavier than any chest of coins left uncounted in a dark room.

Mountains and the Deep

Elsewhere the sages open a single verse and find two maps. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains; Your judgments are a great deep. Rabbi Ishmael hears two destinies: mountainous mercy for those who keep the Torah given on a mountain, and a fathomless reckoning for the wicked. Rabbi Akiva hears one method. God is exacting with everyone, collecting the few sins of the righteous now so their reward can be whole later, and paying the wicked their few merits now so nothing softens the final account.

Mountains press down on the abyss so it cannot flood the world, just as the deeds of the righteous hold back disaster. Mountains are visible and bear fruit. The deep is hidden and barren. Hadar's loftiness belongs to the deep: hidden pride, no fruit, a fall that will not be partial.

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi sees Roman marble pillars wrapped against heat and cold while a beggar shivers under a reed mat. Mercy and severity sit side by side in one street. Empires polish stone. Heaven still counts who freezes.

Called Great, Made Small

Rabbi Yudan hears little foxes in the Song of Songs and names them Esau and his nobles. Father and mother both call Esau gadol, great (Genesis 27:1, Genesis 27:15). God answers through Obadiah: Behold, I made you small among the nations (Obadiah 1:2). A mother may dress a weak son in the name Tall and Quick. Heaven is not fooled by the costume.

The foxes ruin vineyards still in bloom, Israel's fruit not yet ripe. Four little kingdoms, says Rabbi Berekhya, can spoil a vineyard if no one stands in the breach. Hadar is one more Edomite face: power that calls itself great while Heaven measures it for Botzrah's slaughter (Isaiah 34:6).

In the palace at Pahu the lamps still burn expensive oil. Servants polish surfaces Hadar no longer bothers to see. Outside the walls, a herdsman thanks God for a single ewe that lived the winter.

The Sneer and the Scales

Hadar's question, What is silver, returns as a trap. If nothing created can humble him, then nothing created can save him either. The mountains of mercy still stand for those who keep Torah. The deep still waits for those who treat the world as a joke once they own a slice of it.

Alexander once visited a land where a wise king refused buried treasure and married the disputants' children instead, exposing greed dressed as justice. Hadar never took that lesson. He kept the treasure and discarded wonder.

Silver is not the enemy. The sneer is. When a throne teaches its people that gratitude is for the small, the deep under that throne has already begun to open.

The sources leave the cost on the table where hands can still feel the weight of it.

HadarEdomWealthPrideTargumPesiktaJudgmentMercy
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The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 36:39Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862 · Public Domain

The Torah lists the kings of Edom in a dry procession: Bela died, Jobab reigned, Jobab died, Husham reigned, and so on. It is one of those passages readers tend to skim.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 36:39) stops short at the last king, Hadar, the son of Baal Hanan, ruling from the city of Pahu, married to Mehetabel the daughter of Matred. Most Targum verses say only that much. This one does not stop there.

Hadar, the Targumist explains, was a man who laboured with perseverance and vigilance. He worked hard. He climbed the long ladder from obscurity to wealth. He built a palace. He accumulated silver and gold.

Then something broke in him. He turned to become more lofty in his heart, saying: What is silver and what is gold? It sounds, at first, like wisdom. A king who sees through money. A king who has risen above material things. But read it again. This is not humility speaking. This is a man so swollen with self-importance that he dismisses the very wealth he fought for. He has become the kind of rich man who sneers at riches, not because he is holy, but because nothing now seems worthy of him.

Judaism has a sharp eye for this particular corruption. The Mishnah teaches: who is rich? He who rejoices in his portion (Pirkei Avot 4:1). Hadar had everything, and rejoiced in nothing. The Targumist places him at the end of Edom's king list deliberately. This is how a kingdom dies, not from poverty, but from the contempt that wealth breeds when it forgets its Giver.

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Pesikta DeRav Kahana 9:1Pesikta de-Rav Kahana

Translation of the source text.Pesikta de Rav Kahana according to an Oxford manuscript, Dov Mandelbaum ed., N.Y. 1987 · CC-BY

"Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, Your judgments are a great deep" (Psalms 36:7). Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Ishmael said: With the righteous, who fulfill the Torah given from the mighty mountains, the Holy One, blessed be He, deals charitably like the mighty mountains, "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains." But with the wicked, who do not fulfill the Torah given from the mighty mountains, the Holy One, blessed be He, is exacting with them down to the great deep, "Your judgments are a great deep." Rabbi Akiva said: With both these and those the Holy One, blessed be He, is exacting. He is exacting with the righteous and collects from them the few evil deeds they did in this world, in order to give them their full reward in the world to come; and He bestows ease on the wicked and pays them for the few good deeds they did in this world, in order to exact from them in full in the world to come.

Rabbi [Judah the Prince] said: He likened the righteous to their dwelling and the wicked to their dwelling. The righteous to their dwelling: "in a good pasture will I feed them, and on the mountains" (Ezekiel 34:14). And the wicked to their dwelling: "thus says the LORD, on the day it went down to Sheol I caused mourning, I covered the deep over it" (Ezekiel 31:15). Rabbi Judah son of Rabbi said: "I caused mourning", it is written "I caused to wither." A parable: one does not make a cover for a barrel of silver, gold, bronze, iron, tin, or lead, but of clay, each kind with its own kind. So the Holy One, blessed be He, said: Gehinnom is darkness and the deep is darkness and the wicked are darkness; let darkness come and cover darkness, "for in vanity it comes and in darkness it goes, and its name is covered in darkness" (Ecclesiastes 6:4).

Rabbi Jonathan in the name of Rabbi Josiah reordered this verse: Your righteousness is upon Your judgments like the mountains upon the great deep. Just as these mountains press down upon the deep so that it does not rise and flood the world, so the deeds of the righteous press down upon calamity so that it does not come into the world. Another interpretation: just as these mountains have no end, so there is no end to the reward of the righteous in the world to come; just as the deep has no end, so there is no end to the measures of punishment of the wicked in the world to come. Another interpretation: just as these mountains are revealed, so the deeds of the righteous are revealed; just as the deep is hidden, so the deeds of the wicked are hidden. Another interpretation: just as these mountains are sown and yield fruit, so the deeds of the righteous yield fruit; just as the deep is not sown and yields no fruit, so the deeds of the wicked yield no fruit.

Another interpretation: "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains." Rabbi Yudah son of Rabbi Simon said: The charity You did with Noah in the ark was like the mighty mountains, "and the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat" (Genesis 8:4); and the judgments You did with his generation, You were exacting with them down to the great deep, "on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth" (Genesis 7:11). And not only that, but You remembered him; You did not remember him alone, but him and all who were with him in the ark, "and God remembered Noah and every living thing" (Genesis 8:1).

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi went up to Rome and saw there pillars of marble wrapped in covers, in the heat lest they crack and in the cold lest they freeze; and he saw there one poor man with a reed mat beneath him and a reed mat over him. Of the pillars he recited, "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains", where You give, You give abundantly; and of the poor man he recited, "Your judgments are a great deep", where You strike, You are exacting.

Alexander of Macedon went to the king Katzia beyond the mountains of darkness. He came to a province named Carthage which was all women, and they came out before him and said: If you make war with us and conquer us, your name will go out in the world that you destroyed a province of women; and if we make war with you and conquer you, your name will go out in the world that women made war with you and conquered you, and you will no longer be able to stand before a king. When he left he wrote on the city gate: I, Alexander of Macedon, was a fool until I came to the province of Carthage and learned counsel from women. He went to another province named Africa, and they came out before him with golden apples, golden pomegranates, and golden bread. He said to them: Is gold eaten in your land? They said to him: Did you not have this in your own land, that you came to us? He said to them: I did not come to see your wealth; I came to see your justice. While they sat there, two men came for judgment before the king. One said: I bought a ruin from this man, and I cleared it and found in it a treasure, and I said to him, take your treasure, for I bought the ruin and did not buy the treasure. The other said: My lord, when I sold this man the ruin, I sold him all that is in it. The king called one of them and said: Have you a son? He said: Yes. And to the other he said: Have you a daughter? He said: Yes. He said to them: Go, marry them to one another, and let the two of them enjoy the treasure. Alexander began to wonder. The king said: Why do you wonder, did I not judge well? He said: Yes. He said: And had this case come before you in your land, what would you have done? He said: We would have removed the head of this one and the head of that one, and the treasure would have gone to the king. The king said: And does the sun rise upon you? He said: Yes. And does rain fall upon you? He said: Yes. He said: Perhaps there is small cattle in your land? He said: Yes. He said: May that man's spirit expire! It is by the merit of the small cattle that the sun rises upon you and the rain falls upon you; by the merit of the small cattle you are delivered. This is what is written, "man and beast You save, O LORD" (Psalms 36:7): man, for the sake of beast, You save, O LORD.

Israel said: Master of the worlds, we are man, and like cattle You save us, for we are drawn after You like cattle, "draw me after You, let us run" (Song of Songs 1:4), like cattle so are we drawn after You. To where? The school of Rabbi said: to the Garden of Eden, "they are filled from the fatness of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your delights [adanekha]" (Psalms 36:9). Rabbi Eleazar son of Rabbi Menahem said: it is not written "Your delight" but "Your delights," teaching that every single righteous one has a delight of his own. Rabbi Isaac said: the law of man and the law of beast. The law of man, "and on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised" (Leviticus 12:3); and the law of beast, "and from the eighth day onward it shall be accepted" (Leviticus 22:27).

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Shir HaShirim Rabbah 2:15Shir HaShirim Rabbah

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 · CC-BY

In Shir HaShirim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Song of Songs, we find a fascinating discussion about these pesky creatures and what they represent.

Rabbi Yudan and Rabbi Berekhya offer compelling interpretations. Rabbi Yudan equates the "little foxes" to Esau and his noblemen. Remember Esau? Jacob's twin brother, often seen as representing the enemies of Israel. Rabbi Yudan cleverly connects this to the prophecy in (Obadiah 1:2), "Behold, I made you small among the nations," a prophecy aimed at Edom, the descendants of Esau – whom the Sages often identified with Rome.

He then shares a parable. Imagine a woman whose son is weak and small, yet she insists on calling him "Tall and Quick," hoping to get him into the king's elite swordsman program. But everyone else sees him for what he is: puny. This, Rabbi Yudan argues, is like Esau. His father called him gadol (great) in (Genesis 27:1), "He called Esau, his elder [hagadol] son." His mother also called him great, as it is stated: “The garments of Esau, her elder [hagadol] son (Genesis 27:15). But God sees through the facade, declaring, "Behold, I made you small among the nations" (Obadiah 1:2). The imagery culminates with a powerful, almost violent, vision of divine justice: "There is a sacrifice for the Lord in Botzra and a great slaughter in the land of Edom" (Isaiah 34:6). If he is great, the slaughterer corresponds to the bull.

These "foxes" are "ruining the vineyards," which Rabbi Yudan identifies as Israel, referencing (Isaiah 5:7): "For the house of Israel is the vineyard of the Lord of hosts." The problem? "As our vineyards are in bloom," meaning the fruit isn't ripe, and the Jews weren't sufficiently righteous. They are vulnerable. It’s like the prophet Micah laments in (Micah 7:1), "There is no cluster to eat, or a first fruit that my soul desires."

Rabbi Berekhya offers another perspective: the "little foxes" represent the four kingdoms that have historically oppressed Israel. He draws on (Proverbs 30:24): "There are four upon earth that are little." These kingdoms, too, are "ruining the vineyards" – Israel, as (Isaiah 5:7) reminds us. The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) asks, "What caused our vineyard to be damaged?" and answers that it was damaged because they are merely in bloom. They lacked a fully formed protective figure.

It all boils down to a search for righteous individuals. The passage echoes (Ezekiel 22:30): "I sought from among them a man who builds a fence [and stands in the breach before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it,] but I did not find." Without figures like Noah, Daniel, and Job – righteous individuals who could intercede – disaster looms. As Maharzu notes, were it not for the merit of people like Noah, Daniel, and Job, no one would have been left! (See (Ezekiel 14:13-1)4).

So, what do we take away from this? And maybe, just maybe, it's a call to cultivate our own righteousness, to become the "fence builders" who can protect the vineyard from harm. Are we ready to stand in the breach?

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