Scripture Daily

Context No. 699 of 4322 · Obadiah

Context · Reflection

Obadiah 1:8-21: in context

8“Won’t I in that day”, says the LORD, “destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mountain of Esau? 9Your mighty men, Teman, will be dismayed, to the end that everyone may be cut off from the mountain of Esau by slaughter. 10For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever. 11In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance and foreigners entered into his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, even you were like one of them. 12But don’t look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and don’t rejoice over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Don’t speak proudly in the day of distress. 13Don’t enter into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Don’t look down on their affliction in the day of their calamity, neither seize their wealth on the day of their calamity. 14Don’t stand in the crossroads to cut off those of his who escape. Don’t deliver up those of his who remain in the day of distress. 15For the day of the LORD is near all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head. 16For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. Yes, they will drink, swallow down, and will be as though they had not been. 17But in Mount Zion, there will be those who escape, and it will be holy. The house of Jacob will possess their possessions. 18The house of Jacob will be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble. They will burn among them and devour them. There will not be any remaining to the house of Esau.” Indeed, the LORD has spoken. 19Those of the South will possess the mountain of Esau, and those of the lowland, the Philistines. They will possess the field of Ephraim, and the field of Samaria. Benjamin will possess Gilead. 20The captives of this army of the children of Israel, who are among the Canaanites, will possess even to Zarephath; and the captives of Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad, will possess the cities of the Negev. 21Saviors will go up on Mount Zion to judge the mountains of Esau, and the kingdom will be the LORD’s.

Obadiah is the shortest book in the Old Testament, a single oracle, and its whole subject is Edom, the nation descended from Esau, Jacob's brother. God announces that Edom's famed wise men and warriors will be brought down, and then he names the crime. For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you. And the violence turns out to be a particular kind. On the day strangers carried off Jerusalem's wealth and cast lots for the city, the prophet says, you stood on the other side. You did not have to strike a blow. You watched, and then you were like one of them.

That is the charge Obadiah keeps sharpening. Do not gloat over your brother's ruin, do not loot his wealth in his calamity, do not stand at the crossroads to cut down the ones escaping. Edom's sin was not that it led the attack but that it treated a brother's disaster as a spectacle and an opportunity, and neutrality slid into plunder. And the sentence fits the crime exactly: as you have done, it will be done to you. The day of the LORD comes for all who stood by. Only on Mount Zion is there deliverance, and in the end the kingdom is the LORD's.

Edom's guilt was standing on the other side and calling it neutral. What harm have I watched from a safe distance, telling myself that not joining in kept my hands clean?

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