The destruction coming on Edom
1
📚The vision 📖 of Obadiah. This is what the Lord God says concerning Edom 📖; We have heard a report
from the LORD,
and a messenger has been sent
among the nations –
Arise, and let us go up against her
in battle.
2 📚“See, I have made you small
among the nations.
You are greatly despised.
3 📚The pride of your heart has deceived you,
you who live in the clefts of the rock 📖,
whose home is in the heights,
who says in his heart,
‘Who will bring me down
to the ground?’
4 📚Though you exalt yourself like
the eagle,
and though you set your nest
among the stars,
I will bring you down from there”,
says the LORD.
1:2-4 They were a very proud people, so God would humble them. They thought they were great, so He had made them small. See Prov 3:34; 6:16-17; Jam 4:6-10; 1 Pet 5:5-6; Ps 18:25-27; Isa 2:11-18.⚜
5 📚“If thieves came to you,
if robbers at night
(oh, how you will be cut off!),
would they not steal only until
they had enough?
If grape pickers came to you,
would they not leave some grapes 📖?
6 📚Oh, how Esau’s land will be
searched out!
How his hidden treasures hunted!
1:5-6 Edom’s enemies would deal with them in a much worse way than thieves and robbers. They would leave nothing behind.⚜
7 📚All the men of your confederacy
will bring you to the border.
The men who were at peace
with you will deceive you,
and prevail against you.
Those who eat your food prepare
a wound for you.
He has no understanding!”
1:7 Edom’s friends and allies would prove false and treacherous and deceive the people. God would use this means of destroying them.⚜
8 📚The LORD says,
“In that day will I not destroy 📖
the wise men out of Edom,
and understanding out
of the mountain of Esau 📖?
9 📚And your mighty men,
O Teman, will be dismayed,
1:9 Teman was a tribe descended from Esau. It gave its name to the region it occupied in Edom.⚜
so that everyone belonging
to the mountain of Esau may be
cut off in the slaughter.
The reason for God’s judgment on Edom
10 📚Because of your violence
against your brother Jacob 📖
shame will cover you,
and you will be cut off forever 📖.
11 📚“On the day that you stood
on the other side,
on the day strangers took
his forces captive,
and foreigners entered through
his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem,
you were like one of them 📖.
12 📚But you should not have watched
on the day of your brother,
on the day that he became a foreigner;
nor should you have rejoiced
over the children of Judah
on the day of their destruction;
nor should you have spoken proudly
on the day of distress.
1:12 To be glad at the destruction of a brother is devilish and those guilty of it will have to face God’s judgment. Here was a whole nation guilty of this.⚜
13 📚You should not have entered
through the gate of my people
in the day of their calamity.
Indeed, you should not have looked
on their affliction in the day of
their calamity,
or laid hands on their wealth 📖
in the day of their calamity;
14 📚nor should you have stood
at the crossroads to cut off
those among them
who were escaping;
nor should you have delivered up
those among them
1:14 They were determined that none of their “brother” nation should escape, so deadly was their malice and hatred.⚜
1:10-14 Here is the principal reason why God would send destruction on Edom. When Israel was attacked by enemies Edom was glad and actually took part in destroying Israel.⚜
The judgment coming on Edom and others
who remained in the day of distress.
15 📚“For the day of the LORD 📖 is near
on all the nations.
It will be done to you as you have done.
Your payment will return
on your own head 📖.
16 📚For as you drank on my holy mountain 📖,
so all the nations will drink
continually.
Yes, they will drink,
and they will swallow,
and they will be as though
they had never been.
The future restoration and possessions of Israel
17 📚 📖But on mount Zion there will be
deliverance,
and there will be holiness,
and the house of Jacob will possess
their possessions.
18 📚And the house of Jacob will be a fire,
and the house of Joseph a flame,
and the house of Esau will be stubble,
and they will set them on fire
and consume them.
And no one will remain
of the house of Esau,
for the LORD has spoken”.
1:18 Ezek 25:12-14; Zech 12:6. God will treat Edom as Edom treated Israel, and will use Israel as the instrument in its destruction.⚜
19 📚And those of the south of Israel
will possess the mountain of Esau,
and those of the plains the land
of the Philistines 📖,
and they will possess the fields
of Ephraim,
and the fields of Samaria,
and Benjamin will possess Gilead 📖.
20 📚And the returned captives
of this host of the children
of Israel will possess the land
of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath 📖,
and the captives from Jerusalem,
who are in Sepharad,
will possess the cities of the south.
1:19-20 People of Israel will occupy the land of Edom. This has not yet taken place, but as sure as God’s Word is true it will yet happen.⚜
21 📚And saviours will come up
on Mount Zion to judge the mountain
of Esau.
1:21 The center of authority and, apparently, the capital of the coming kingdom will be Jerusalem. And the kingdom of Israel and the rule over the nations will belong to the LORD – Isa 2:1-4; 11:10-16; Ezek 48:35; Joel 3:20-21; Zech 14; Rev 11:15.⚜
And the kingdom will belong
to the LORD.