Yehezkiel 36:2-5

36:2 This is what the sovereign Lord says: The enemy has spoken against you, saying “Aha!” and, “The ancient heights ¹  have become our property!”’ 36:3 So prophesy and say: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Surely because they have made you desolate and crushed you from all directions, so that you have become the property of the rest of the nations, and have become the subject of gossip ²  and slander among the people, 36:4 therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the sovereign Lord: This is what the sovereign Lord says to the mountains and hills, the ravines and valleys, and to the desolate ruins and the abandoned cities that have become prey and an object of derision to the rest of the nations round about – 36:5 therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Surely I have spoken in the fire of my zeal against the rest of the nations, and against all Edom, who with great joy and utter contempt have made my land their property and prey, because of its pasture.’

Mazmur 137:7

137:7 Remember, O Lord, what the Edomites did

on the day Jerusalem fell. ³ 

They said, “Tear it down, tear it down, ⁴ 

right to its very foundation!”

Amsal 17:5

17:5 The one who mocks the poor ⁵  insults ⁶  his Creator;

whoever rejoices over disaster will not go unpunished.

Ratapan 4:21

The Prophet Speaks:

ש (Sin/Shin)

4:21 Rejoice and be glad for now, ⁷  O people of Edom, ⁸ 

who reside in the land of Uz.

But the cup of judgment ⁹  will pass ¹⁰  to you also;

you will get drunk and take off your clothes.

Obaja 1:12

1:12 You should not ¹¹  have gloated ¹²  when your relatives ¹³  suffered calamity. ¹⁴ 

You should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah when they were destroyed. ¹⁵ 

You should not have boasted ¹⁶  when they suffered adversity. ¹⁷ 

Obaja 1:15

The Coming Day of the Lord

1:15 “For the day of the Lord ¹⁸  is approaching ¹⁹  for all the nations! ²⁰ 

Just as you have done, so it will be done to you.

You will get exactly what your deeds deserve. ²¹ 

[36:2]  ¹ tn Or “high places.”

[36:3]  ² tn Heb “lip of the tongue.”

[137:7]  ³ tn Heb “remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom, the day of Jerusalem.”

[137:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “lay [it] bare, lay [it] bare.”

[17:5]  ⁵ sn The parallelism helps define the subject matter: The one who “mocks the poor” (NAB, NASB, NIV) is probably one who “rejoices [NIV gloats] over disaster.” The poverty is hereby explained as a disaster that came to some. The topic of the parable is the person who mocks others by making fun of their misfortune.

[17:5]  ⁶ sn The Hebrew word translated “insults” (חֵרֵף, kheref) means “reproach; taunt” (as with a cutting taunt); it describes words that show contempt for or insult God. The idea of reproaching the Creator may be mistaking and blaming God’s providential control of the world (C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 337). W. G. Plaut, however, suggests that mocking the poor means holding up their poverty as a personal failure and thus offending their dignity and their divine nature (Proverbs, 187).

[4:21]  ⁷ tn The phrase “for now” is added in the translation to highlight the implied contrast between the present joy of the Gentiles (4:21a) and their future judgment (4:21b).

[4:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “O Daughter of Edom.”

[4:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “the cup.” Judgment is often depicted as a cup of wine that God forces a person to drink, causing him to lose consciousness, red wine drooling out of his mouth – resembling corpses lying on the ground as a result of the actual onslaught of the Lord’s judgment. The drunkard will reel and stagger, causing bodily injury to himself – an apt metaphor to describe the devastating effects of God’s judgment. Just as a cup of poison kills all those who are forced to drink it, the cup of God’s wrath destroys all those who must drink it (e.g., Ps 75:9; Isa 51:17, 22; Jer 25:15, 17, 28; 49:12; 51:7; Lam 4:21; Ezek 23:33; Hab 2:16).

[4:21]  ¹⁰ tn The imperfect verb “will pass” may also be a jussive, continuing the element of request, “let the cup pass…”

[1:12]  ¹¹ tn In vv. 12-14 there are eight prohibitions which summarize the nature of the Lord’s complaint against Edom. Each prohibition alludes to something that Edom did to Judah that should not have been done by one “brother” to another. It is because of these violations that the Lord has initiated judgment against Edom. In the Hebrew text these prohibitions are expressed by אַל (’al, “not”) plus the jussive form of the verb, which is common in negative commands of immediate urgency. Such constructions would normally have the sense of prohibiting something either not yet begun (i.e., “do not start to …”) or something already in process at the time of speaking (i.e., “stop…”). Here, however, it seems more likely that the prohibitions refer to a situation in past rather than future time (i.e., “you should not have …”). If so, the verbs are being used in a rhetorical fashion, as though the prophet were vividly projecting himself back into the events that he is describing and urging the Edomites not to do what in fact they have already done.

[1:12]  ¹² tn The Hebrew expression “to look upon” often has the sense of “to feast the eyes upon” or “to gloat over” (cf. v. 13).

[1:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “your brother” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); NCV “your brother Israel.”

[1:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in the day of your brother, in the day of his calamity.” This expression is probably a hendiadys meaning, “in the day of your brother’s calamity.” The Hebrew word נָכְרוֹ (nokhro, “his calamity”)_is probably a word-play on נָכְרִים (nokherim, “foreigners”) in v. 11.

[1:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “in the day of their destruction” (so KJV, NASB, NIV); NAB, NRSV “on the day of their ruin.”

[1:12]  ¹⁶ tn Or “boasted with your mouth.” The Hebrew text includes the phrase “with your mouth,” which is redundant in English and has been left untranslated.

[1:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in the day of adversity”; NASB “in the day of their distress.”

[1:15]  ¹⁸ sn The term יוֹם (yom, “day”) is repeated ten times in vv. 11-14 referring to the time period when Judah/Jerusalem suffered calamity which Edom exploited for its own sinful gain. In each of those cases יוֹם was qualified by a following genitive to describe Judah’s plight, e.g., “in the day of your brother’s calamity” (v. 12). Here it appears again but now followed by the divine name to describe the time of God’s judgment against Edom for its crimes against humanity: “the day of the Lord.” In the present translation, the expression בְּיוֹם (bÿyom; literally, “In the day of”) was rendered “When…” in vv. 11-14. However, here it is translated more literally because the expression “the day of the Lord” is a well-known technical expression for a time of divine intervention in judgment. While this expression sometimes refers to the final eschatological day of God’s judgment, it may also refer occasionally to historical acts of judgment.

[1:15]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “near” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NCV “is coming soon.”

[1:15]  ²⁰ sn God’s judgment would not be confined to Edom. Edom would certainly be punished in just measure for its wrongdoing, but “the day of the Lord” would also encompass judgment of the nations (v. 15).

[1:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “your deed will return on your own head.” Verses 15 and 16 provide an example of ironic reversal, whereby the tables are turned and poetic justice is served. This is a motif that is common in prophetic oracles against foreign nations.