Obaja 1:3

1:3 Your presumptuous heart ¹  has deceived you –

you who reside in the safety of the rocky cliffs, ² 

whose home is high in the mountains. ³ 

You think to yourself, ⁴ 

‘No one can ⁵  bring me down to the ground!’ ⁶ 

Obaja 1:5

1:5 “If thieves came to rob you ⁷  during the night, ⁸ 

they would steal only as much as they wanted! ⁹ 

If grape pickers came to harvest your vineyards, ¹⁰ 

they would leave some behind for the poor! ¹¹ 

But you will be totally destroyed! ¹² 

Obaja 1:7-8

1:7 All your allies ¹³  will force ¹⁴  you from your homeland! ¹⁵ 

Your treaty partners ¹⁶  will deceive you and overpower you.

Your trusted friends ¹⁷  will set an ambush ¹⁸  for ¹⁹  you

that will take you by surprise! ²⁰ 

1:8 At that time,” ²¹  the Lord says,

“I will destroy the wise sages of Edom! ²² 

the advisers ²³  from Esau’s mountain! ²⁴ 

Obaja 1:14-15

1:14 You should not have stood at the fork in the road ²⁵  to slaughter ²⁶  those trying to escape. ²⁷ 

You should not have captured their refugees when they suffered adversity. ²⁸ 

The Coming Day of the Lord

1:15 “For the day of the Lord ²⁹  is approaching ³⁰  for all the nations! ³¹ 

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

You will get exactly what your deeds deserve. ³² 

Obaja 1:17

1:17 But on Mount Zion there will be a remnant of those who escape, ³³ 

and it will be a holy place once again.

The descendants ³⁴  of Jacob will conquer ³⁵ 

those who had conquered them. ³⁶ 

[1:3]  ¹ tn Heb “the presumption of your heart”; NAB, NIV “the pride of your heart”; NASB “arrogance of your heart.”

[1:3]  ² tn Heb “in the concealed places of the rock”; KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “in the clefts of the rock”; NCV “the hollow places of the cliff”; CEV “a mountain fortress.”

[1:3]  sn The word rock in Hebrew (סֶלַע, sela’) is a wordplay on Sela, the name of a prominent Edomite city. Its impregnability was a cause for arrogance on the part of its ancient inhabitants.

[1:3]  ³ tn Heb “on high (is) his dwelling”; NASB “in the loftiness of your dwelling place”; NRSV “whose dwelling (abode NAB) is in the heights.”

[1:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “the one who says in his heart.”

[1:3]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew imperfect verb used here is best understood in a modal sense (“Who can bring me down?”) rather than in the sense of a simple future (“Who will bring me down?”). So also in v. 4 (“I can bring you down”). The question is not so much whether this will happen at some time in the future, but whether it even lies in the realm of possible events. In their hubris the Edomites were boasting that no one had the capability of breaching their impregnable defenses. However, their pride caused them to fail to consider the vast capabilities of Yahweh as warrior.

[1:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “Who can bring me down?” This rhetorical question implies a negative answer: “No one!”

[1:5]  ⁷ sn Obadiah uses two illustrations to show the totality of Edom’s approaching destruction. Both robbers and harvesters would have left at least something behind. Such will not be the case, however, with the calamity that is about to befall Edom. A virtually identical saying appears in Jer 49:9-10.

[1:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “If thieves came to you, or if plunderers of the night” (NRSV similar). The repetition here adds rhetorical emphasis.

[1:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “Would they not have stolen only their sufficiency?” The rhetorical question is used to make an emphatic assertion, which is perhaps best represented by the indicative form in the translation.

[1:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “If grape pickers came to you.” The phrase “to harvest your vineyards” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation to clarify the point of the entire simile which is assumed.

[1:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Would they not have left some gleanings?” The rhetorical question makes an emphatic assertion, which for the sake of clarity is represented by the indicative form in the translation. The implied answer to these rhetorical questions is “yes.” The fact that something would have remained after the imagined acts of theft or harvest stands in stark contrast to the totality of Edom’s destruction as predicted by Obadiah. Edom will be so decimated as a result of God’s judgment that nothing at all will be left

[1:5]  sn According to the Mosaic law, harvesters were required to leave some grain behind in the fields for the poor (Lev 19:9; 23:22; see also Ruth 2); there was a similar practice with grapes and olives (Lev 19:10; Deut 24:21). Regarding gleanings left behind from grapes, see Judg 8:2; Jer 6:9; 49:9; Mic 7:1.

[1:5]  ¹² tn Heb “O how you will be cut off.” This emotional interjection functions rhetorically as the prophet’s announcement of judgment on Edom. In Hebrew this statement actually appears between the first and second metaphors, that is, in the middle of this verse. As the point of the comparison, one would expect it to follow both of the two metaphors; however, Obadiah interrupts his own sentence to interject his emphatic exclamation that cannot wait until the end of the sentence. This emphatic sentence structure is eloquent in Hebrew but awkward in English. Since this emphatic assertion is the point of his comparison, it appears at the end of the sentence in this translation, where one normally expects to find the concluding point of a metaphorical comparison.

[1:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “All the men of your covenant”; KJV, ASV “the men of thy confederacy.” In Hebrew “they will send you unto the border” and “all the men of your covenant” appear in two separate poetic lines (cf. NAB “To the border they drive you – all your allies”). Since the second is a noun clause functioning as the subject of the first clause, the two are rendered as a single sentence in the translation.

[1:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “send”; NASB “send you forth”; NAB “drive”; NIV “force.”

[1:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “to the border” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[1:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the men of your peace.” This expression refers to a political/military alliance or covenant of friendship.

[1:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “your bread,” which makes little sense in the context. The Hebrew word can be revocalized to read “those who eat bread with you,” i.e., “your friends.” Cf. KJV “they that eat thy bread”; NIV “those who eat your bread”; TEV “Those friends who ate with you.”

[1:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “set a trap” (so NIV, NRSV). The meaning of the Hebrew word מָזוֹר (mazor; here translated “ambush”) is uncertain; it occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. The word probably refers to something “spread out” for purposes of entrapment, such as a net. Other possibilities include “trap,” “fetter,” or “stumbling block.”

[1:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “beneath” (so NAB).

[1:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “there is no understanding in him.”

[1:8]  ²¹ tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV, NIV); NAB, NASB, NRSV “on that day.”

[1:8]  ²² tn Heb “Will I not destroy those who are wise from Edom?” The rhetorical question functions as an emphatic affirmation. For the sake of clarity this has been represented by the emphatic indicative in the translation.

[1:8]  ²³ tn Heb “understanding”; NIV “men of understanding.” This undoubtedly refers to members of the royal court who offered political and military advice to the Edomite kings. In the ancient Near East, such men of wisdom were often associated with divination and occultic practices (cf. Isa 3:3, 47:10, 13). The Edomites were also renown in the ancient Near East as a center of traditional sagacity and wisdom; perhaps that is referred to here (cf. Jer 49:7).

[1:8]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and understanding from the mountain of Esau.” The phrase “I will remove the men of…” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness. Here “understanding” is a synecdoche of part for whole; the faculty of understanding is put for the wise men who possess it.

[1:14]  ²⁵ tn The meaning of the Hebrew word פֶּרֶק (pereq; here translated “fork in the road”) is uncertain. The word is found in the Hebrew Bible only here and in Nah 3:1, where it means “plunder.” In the present context it seems to refer to a strategic intersection or fork in a road where bands of Edomites apprehended Israelites who were fleeing from the attack on Jerusalem. Cf. NAB, NIV, NLT “crossroads”; NRSV “crossings.”

[1:14]  ²⁶ tn Heb “to cut off” (so KJV, NRSV); NASB, NIV “to cut down.”

[1:14]  ²⁷ tn Heb “his fugitives”; NAB, CEV “refugees.”

[1:14]  ²⁸ tn Heb “in the day of distress” (so KJV, ASV).

[1:15]  ²⁹ 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]  ³⁰ tn Heb “near” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NCV “is coming soon.”

[1:15]  ³¹ 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]  ³² 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.

[1:17]  ³³ tn Heb “will be a fugitive.” This is a collective singular. Cf. NCV “some will escape the judgment.”

[1:17]  ³⁴ tn Heb “house” (so most English versions); NCV, TEV “the people of Jacob.” The word “house” also occurs four times in v. 18.

[1:17]  ³⁵ tn Heb “dispossess.” This root is repeated in the following line to emphasize poetic justice: The punishment will fit the crime.

[1:17]  ³⁶ tc The present translation follows the reading מוֹרִשֵׁיהֶם (morishehem; literally, “those dispossessing them”; cf. NAB, NRSV, CEV) rather than מוֹרָשֵׁיהֶם (morashehem, “their possessions”) of the MT (cf. LXX, Syriac, and Vg, followed by KJV, ASV, NASB).