Uz
Uz is a region mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Transjordan in modern-day Israel. Known today as Buseira. It appears across 3 verses in Scripture.
Biblical History
The land of Uz is most celebrated as the homeland of Job, the great sufferer whose story forms the centerpiece of one of the Bible's most profound wisdom books. Job 1:1 opens simply: "There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job." The geographical designation places Job outside the strict boundaries of Israel, grounding his story in the broader human experience of suffering and faith. Uz appears in Genesis 10:23 and 1 Chronicles 1:17 as a descendant of Shem through Aram, and in Genesis 22:21 as a son of Nahor, Abraham's brother. Jeremiah 25:20 lists Uz among the nations that will drink the cup of God's wrath, suggesting it was a known territory southeast of Israel. Lamentations 4:21 taunts the daughter of Edom who dwells in the land of Uz, connecting Uz with the Edomite or Transjordanian region. Scholars have debated whether Uz lay in northern Arabia, Edom, or Aram, but the Transjordanian or Edomite location is most widely accepted. Job's story, set in Uz, transcends its geography to address universal questions of suffering, divine justice, and human endurance.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The land of Uz resists precise archaeological identification due to the ambiguity of its biblical descriptions and the lack of explicit ancient inscriptional evidence naming Uz as a defined political territory. The most widely accepted identification places Uz in the region of Edom or the northern Hejaz, corresponding to the area around Buseira (ancient Bozrah) in modern Jordan. The Edomite region has been archaeologically explored, with significant finds at Buseira, Tawilan, and Khirbet en-Nahas demonstrating Iron Age occupation and copper production. The association of Uz with Edom in Lamentations 4:21 provides the strongest textual basis for this geographic location, though a northern Aramaean location in Syria also has scholarly advocates.
Verse Appearances (3)
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]