Shall force you to the border;
aThe men at peace with you
Shall deceive you and prevail against you.
Those who eat your bread shall lay a1 trap for you.
bNo1 one is aware of it.
“Even destroy the wise men from Edom,
And understanding from the mountains of Esau?
To the end that everyone from the mountains of Esau
May be cut off by slaughter.
Edom Mistreated His Brother
Shame shall cover you,
And byou shall be cut off forever.
In the day that strangers carried captive his forces,
When foreigners entered his gates
And bcast lots for Jerusalem—
Even you were as one of them.
1In the day of his captivity;
Nor should you have brejoiced over the children of Judah
In the day of their destruction;
Nor should you have spoken proudly
In the day of distress.
In the day of their calamity.
Indeed, you should not have1 gazed on their affliction
In the day of their calamity,
Nor laid hands on their substance
In the day of their calamity.
To cut off those among them who escaped;
Nor should you have1 delivered up those among them who remained
In the day of distress.
bAs you have done, it shall be done to you;
Your1 reprisal shall return upon your own head.
So shall all the nations drink continually;
Yes, they shall drink, and swallow,
And they shall be as though they had never been.
Israel’s Final Triumph
And there shall be holiness;
The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.
And the house of Joseph aa flame;
But the house of Esau shall be stubble;
They shall kindle them and devour them,
And no survivor shall remain of the house of Esau,”
For the Lord has spoken.
bAnd the Lowland shall possess Philistia.
They shall possess the fields of Ephraim
And the fields of Samaria.
Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
Shall possess the land of the Canaanites
As afar as Zarephath.
The captives of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
bShall possess the cities of the1 South.
To judge the mountains of Esau,
And the bkingdom shall be the Lord’s.
| << Obadiah 1:7 | Obadiah 1:9 >> |
Obadiah 1:8
Shall I not in that day even destroy the wise out of Edom? - It was then no common, no recoverable, loss of wisdom, for God, the Author of wisdom, had destroyed it. The pagan had a proverb, "whom God willeth to destroy, he first dements." So Isaiah foretells of Judah Isaiah 29:14, "The wisdom of their wise shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent shall be hid." Edom was celebrated of old for its wisdom. Eliphaz, the chief of Job' s friends, the representative of human wisdom, was a Temanite Job 4:1. A vestige of the name of the Shuhites, from where came another of his friends, probably still lingers among the mountains of Edom. Edom is doubtless included among the "sons of the East" I Kings 4:30 whose wisdom is set as a counterpart to that of Egypt, the highest human wisdom of that period, by which that of Solomon would be measured. "Solomon' s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the East country and all the wisdom of Egypt." In Baruch, they are still mentioned among the chief types of human wisdom (Bar. 3:22, 23). "It (wisdom) hath not been heard of in Chanaan, neither hath it been seen in Theman. The Agarenes that seek wisdom upon earth, the merchants of Meran and of Theman, the authors of fables and searchers-out of understanding, none of these have known, the way of wisdom, or remember her paths."
Whence, Jeremiah Jeremiah 49:7, in using, these words of Obadiah, says: "Is wisdom no more in Teman? Is counsel perished from the prudent? Is their wisdom vanished?" He speaks, as though Edom were a known abode of human wisdom, so that it was strange that it was found there no more. He speaks of the Edomites "as prudent," discriminating , full of judgment, and wonders that counsel should have "perished" from them. They had it eminently then, before it perished. They thought themselves wise; they were thought so; but God took it away at their utmost need. So He says of Egypt Isaiah 19:3, Isaiah 19:11-12. "I will destroy the counsel thereof. The counsel of the wise counselors of Pharaoh is become brutish. How say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings? Where are they? Who are thy wise? And let them tell thee now, and let them know, what the Lord of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt." And of Judah Jeremiah 19:7. "I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place."
The people of the world think that they hold their wisdom and all God' s natural gifts, independently of the Giver (God). God, by the events of His natural Providence, as here by His word, shows, through some sudden withdrawal of their wisdom, that it is His, not their' s! People wonder at the sudden failure, the flaw in the well-arranged plan, the one over-confident act which ruins the whole scheme, the over-shrewdness which betrays itself, or the unaccountable oversight. They are amazed that one so shrewd should overlook this or that, and think not that He, in whose hands are our powers of thought, supplied not just that insight, Whereon the whole depended.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Obadiah 1:8:
| << Obadiah 1:7 | Obadiah 1:9 >> |
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