OBADIAH
This book foretells of God’s vengeance against the land of Edom (later called Idumea, the home country of the Herod family who ruled Judea and Galilee as kings from 37 B.C. to the destruction of Judea and Galilee by the Romans in 70 A.D.)
Edom was the kingdom established by Jacob’s brother Esau, located on the mountainous southern border of Judah and even though the Edomites were brethren with the Jews, there was strife between the Jews and the Edomites. Edom made its living by controlling the caravan routes into southern Canaan from the Nabatean tribes in the east and the Egyptian caravans to the south and west.
When God brought Israel out of Egypt after 430 years of slavery, Moses had requested to travel through Edom as the shortest route to Canaan. However, Scripture records;
NUMBERS 20:14-21
14 Now Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom. “Thus says your brother Israel: ‘You know all the hardship that has befallen us,
15 how our fathers went down to Egypt, and we dwelt in Egypt a long time, and the Egyptians afflicted us and our fathers.
16 When we cried out to the Lord, He heard our voice and sent the Angel and brought us up out of Egypt; now here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your border.
17 Please let us pass through your country. We will not pass through fields or vineyards, nor will we drink water from wells; we will go along the King’s Highway; we will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory.’ ”
18 Then Edom said to him, “You shall not pass through my land, lest I come out against you with the sword.”
19 So the children of Israel said to him, “We will go by the Highway, and if I or my livestock drink any of your water, then I will pay for it; let me only pass through on foot, nothing more.”
20 Then he said, “You shall not pass through.” So Edom came out against them with many men and with a strong hand.
21 Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory; so Israel turned away from him.
Whether out of fear or spite, the king of Edom refused passage to the Jews, even though they knew that they were brethren to the Jews. They may have feared invasion, but I also suspect it may have been the fulfillment of a prophecy given by Jacob and Esau’s father Isaac. Esau had foolishly sold his birthright as firstborn to Jacob for a bowl of soup. As such, Isaac had been forced to give Jacob Esau’s blessings of prosperity and Esau received lesser blessings.
An infuriated Esau had vowed to kill Jacob, but Jacob had fled to Haran, his grandfather Abraham’s birthplace. Many years later Jacob and Esau had reconciled, but Isaac’s prophecy still held in their descendants. When giving his lesser blessings to Esau, Isaac had said;
GENESIS 27:39-40
39 Then Isaac his father answered and said to him: “Behold, your dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above.
40 By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; and it shall come to pass, when you become restless, that you shall break his yoke from your neck.”
OBADIAH 1:1-4
1 The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom (We have heard a report from the Lord, and a messenger has been sent among the nations, saying,.“Arise, and let us rise up against her for battle”):
2 “Behold, I will make you small among the nations; you shall be greatly despised.
3 The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; you who say in your heart, ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’
4 Though you ascend as high as the eagle, and though you set your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down,” says the Lord.
Overbearing pride is an abomination to the Lord and He had not forgotten Edom’s refusal to allow their brethren Israel to pass through their land. They felt impregnable in their mountain fortresses and God was about to humble them.
OBADIAH 1:5-9
5 “If thieves had come to you, if robbers by night— Oh, how you will be cut off!— would they not have stolen till they had enough? If grape-gatherers had come to you, would they not have left some gleanings?
6 “Oh, how Esau shall be searched out! How his hidden treasures shall be sought after!
7 All the men in your confederacy shall force you to the border; the men at peace with you shall deceive you and prevail against you. Those who eat your bread shall lay a trap for you. No one is aware of it.
8 “Will I not in that day,” says the Lord “even destroy the wise men from Edom, and understanding from the mountains of Esau?
9 Then your mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed, to the end that everyone from the mountains of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.
Their pride in their might had blinded them and had made them lax. Physical might is nothing before God - the Assyrians were a superpower in Mesopotamia until upstart Babylon destroyed them. The mighty Persian Empire was conquered by a small contingent of determined Greeks under Alexander the Great.
God is prophesying that Edom will be thoroughly plundered by it’s neighbors with whom they felt at peace. History shows that the Edomites were invaded and pushed west and northward against the southern border of Israel by Nabateans from the East as God had prophesied.
OBADIAH 1:10-14
10 “For violence against your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever.
11 In the day that you stood on the other side— in the day that strangers carried captive his forces, when foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem— even you were as one of them.
12 “But you should not have gazed on the day of your brother in the day of his captivity; nor should you have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; nor should you have spoken proudly in the day of distress.
13 You should not have entered the gate of My people in the day of their calamity. indeed, you should not have gazed on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity.
14 You should not have stood at the crossroad to cut off those among them who escaped; nor should you have delivered up those among them who remained in the day of distress.
This seems to be referring to Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar’s second siege of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and deported its people to Babylon for 70 years.
When Jerusalem fell, the Edomites, like scavenging jackals after a lion had made its kill, had joined the Babylonians in plundering and looting the city, had blocked and captured those who escaped, turning them over to the Babylonians, and had rejoiced in Jerusalem’s destruction.
OBADIAH 1:15-16
15 “For the day of the Lord upon all the nations is near; as you have done, it shall be done to you; your reprisal shall return upon your own head.
16 For as you drank on My holy mountain, so shall all the nations drink continually; yes, they shall drink, and swallow, and they shall be as though they had never been.
Edom would not rejoice for long, as a few years later Nebuchadnezzar would come sweeping back down and lay waste to all of Edom, just as he had done with Judah. They had plundered Judah and Nebuchadnezzar had in turn plundered them.
OBADIAH 1:17-18
17 “But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.
18 The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a 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.
Judah would eventually conquer the remnants of the Edomites and Edom would become a vassal to Judah. And while Edom (later called Idumea) existed until the destruction of Judea (Judah) by the Romans in 70 A.D., the Edomites were a mixed race of people who dwelt in Edom after Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the Edomite kingdom, wiping out all of the descendants of Esau.
OBADIAH 1:19-21
19 The South shall possess the mountains of Esau, and the lowland shall possess Philistia. They shall possess the fields of Ephraim and the fields of Samaria. Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
20 And the captives of this host of the children of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath. The captives of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad shall possess the cities of the South.
21 Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion to judge the mountains of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.
God promises that Israel will come back and possess the lands of their enemies, including Edom, the Philistines, and up to the borders of Lebanon (northern Galilee). History shows that when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem he also destroyed the Philistines so that when they returned from Babylonian captivity after 70 years the Jews were able to possess the Philistine coastlands to the west and Edom to the south as prophesied.
AMOS 1:7-8
7 But I will send a fire upon the wall of Gaza, which shall devour its palaces.
8 I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and the one who holds the scepter from Ashkelon; I will turn My hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish,” says the Lord God.
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