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1. Vision of Obadiah

¹ The vision of Obadiah.

This is what the Sovereign LORD says about Edom—

We have heard a message from the LORD:
An envoy was sent to the nations to say,
“Rise, let us go against her for battle”—

    ² “See, I will make you small among the nations;
   you will be utterly despised.
³ The pride of your heart has deceived you,
   you who live in the clefts of the rocks Or of Sela
   and make your home on the heights,
you who say to yourself,
   ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’
⁴ Though you soar like the eagle
   and make your nest among the stars,
   from there I will bring you down,” declares the LORD.
⁵ “If thieves came to you,
   if robbers in the night—
oh, what a disaster awaits you!—
   would they not steal only as much as they wanted?
If grape pickers came to you,
   would they not leave a few grapes?
⁶ But how Esau will be ransacked,
   his hidden treasures pillaged!
⁷ All your allies will force you to the border;
   your friends will deceive and overpower you;
those who eat your bread will set a trap for you, The meaning of the Hebrew for this clause is uncertain.
   but you will not detect it.

    ⁸ “In that day,” declares the LORD,
   “will I not destroy the wise men of Edom,
   those of understanding in the mountains of Esau?
⁹ Your warriors, Teman, will be terrified,
   and everyone in Esau’s mountains
   will be cut down in the slaughter.
¹⁰ Because of the violence against your brother Jacob,
   you will be covered with shame;
   you will be destroyed forever.
¹¹ On the day you stood aloof
   while strangers carried off his wealth
and foreigners entered his gates
   and cast lots for Jerusalem,
   you were like one of them.
¹² You should not gloat over your brother
   in the day of his misfortune,
nor rejoice over the people of Judah
   in the day of their destruction,
nor boast so much
   in the day of their trouble.
¹³ You should not march through the gates of my people
   in the day of their disaster,
nor gloat over them in their calamity
   in the day of their disaster,
nor seize their wealth
   in the day of their disaster.
¹⁴ You should not wait at the crossroads
   to cut down their fugitives,
nor hand over their survivors
   in the day of their trouble.

    ¹⁵ “The day of the LORD is near
   for all nations.
As you have done, it will be done to you;
   your deeds will return upon your own head.
¹⁶ Just as you drank on my holy hill,
   so all the nations will drink continually;
they will drink and drink
   and be as if they had never been.
¹⁷ But on Mount Zion will be deliverance;
   it will be holy,
   and Jacob will possess his inheritance.
¹⁸ Jacob will be a fire
   and Joseph a flame;
Esau will be stubble,
   and they will set him on fire and destroy him.
There will be no survivors
   from Esau.” The LORD has spoken.

    ¹⁹ People from the Negev will occupy
   the mountains of Esau,
and people from the foothills will possess
   the land of the Philistines.
They will occupy the fields of Ephraim and Samaria,
   and Benjamin will possess Gilead.
²⁰ This company of Israelite exiles who are in Canaan
   will possess the land as far as Zarephath;
the exiles from Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
   will possess the towns of the Negev.
²¹ Deliverers will go up on Or from Mount Zion
   to govern the mountains of Esau.
   And the kingdom will be the LORD’s.

Here again the Prophet meets a doubt, which might come into the mind of each of them; for the Idumeans were flourishing, and their condition was independent, when the Israelites as well as the Jews were led into exile, and Jerusalem with its temple was destroyed. They might under such circumstances despair; but the Prophet shows, that though for a time the house of Jacob seemed to be dead, yet a fire would be kindled, which would consume the Idumeans, though they were then proud of their power and their wealth, and also of the prosperous issue of the victory over the Jews, for they had been enriched, and well as the Assyrians, by the overthrow of their brethren. A similar mode of speaking Isaiah also adopts; though he directs his discourse, not to the Idumeans, but to others, yet his manner of speaking is the same when he says, that God, the light of Israel, would be a fire and a flame to consume the wicked, (Isaiah 29:6.)

But this was fulfilled, when the Lord avenged the cruelty of Edom, though the Jews were then in exile and could not move a finger, when they were without arms, yea, when they were miserable slaves: the Idumeans were even then consumed, by what fire? how was this burning kindled? Even then the house of Jacob and the house of Joseph were like a fire and a flame The cause of this ruin, it is true, did not immediately appear to the Idumeans: but we must here look to the purpose of God. Why did God with so much severity punish the Idemeans? Because he intended by this example to show how much he loved his Church. Since then their cruelty was the cause of ruin to the Idumeans, rightly does the prophet say, that the house of Jacob and the house of Joseph would be like a fire and a flame to consume the Idumeans. And it was not a small solace to the miserable exiles, when they understood, that they were still regarded by God in their depressed condition. Inasmuch then as they were exposed to the reproach and ridicule of all, it pleased God to testify that they were the objects of his care, and that he would, for their sake, destroy whole nations even those who then gloried in their power. We now then see why the Prophet adopted this figurative language. By the house of Joseph, he means as we have said elsewhere the kingdom of Israel; he mentions a part for the whole. It follows —