Elam and the Elamites
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(Gen. 14:1, 9; Isa. 11:11; Jer. 25:25; Ezek. 32:24; Dan. 8:2) — a country or region inhabited by the Elamites, lying east of Shinar and north of the Persian Gulf. Chedorlaomer was one of the most ancient kings of this region (Gen. 14:1), and Susa was its chief city (Dan. 8:2). When the sacred writers speak of the land of Elam, they generally mean by it Susiana (present-day Khuzestan). The Elamites were a warlike people, famed for their skill with the bow (Isa. 22:6; Jer. 49:35), and were generally reckoned a very dangerous enemy (Ezek. 32:24).
Some of this people, or more likely some of the Jews residing as settlers in the region of Elam, were present in Jerusalem at the miraculous descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:9). The language of the Elamites was evidently Semitic, since they themselves were of Semitic origin. After the varied fortunes of the Persian kingdom, under whose rule Elam latterly stood, the judgment of God at last came upon this country too, as the prophets had long before foretold.
Today ruins alone are to be seen everywhere here, together with the wretched remnants, scattered over the ground, of the once-magnificent temple of Diana. The expression in the book of the prophet Jeremiah (49:39), “but it shall come to pass in the latter days, that I will bring again the captivity of Elam, saith the LORD,” is generally taken to refer to the restoration of the Persian kingdom by Cyrus, who conquered the Babylonians just as the Babylonians had earlier subjected the Persians to their rule.