Obaja 1:7

1:7 All your allies ¹  will force ²  you from your homeland! ³ 

Your treaty partners ⁴  will deceive you and overpower you.

Your trusted friends ⁵  will set an ambush ⁶  for ⁷  you

that will take you by surprise! ⁸ 

Obaja 1:13

1:13 You should not have entered the city ⁹  of my people when they experienced distress. ¹⁰ 

You should not have joined ¹¹  in gloating over their misfortune when they suffered distress. ¹² 

You should not have looted ¹³  their wealth when they endured distress. ¹⁴ 

Obaja 1:17

1:17 But on Mount Zion there will be a remnant of those who escape, ¹⁵ 

and it will be a holy place once again.

The descendants ¹⁶  of Jacob will conquer ¹⁷ 

those who had conquered them. ¹⁸ 

[1:7]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “send”; NASB “send you forth”; NAB “drive”; NIV “force.”

[1:7]  ³ tn Heb “to the border” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[1:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “the men of your peace.” This expression refers to a political/military alliance or covenant of friendship.

[1:7]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “beneath” (so NAB).

[1:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “there is no understanding in him.”

[1:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “the gate.” The term “gate” here functions as a synecdoche for the city as a whole, which the Edomites plundered.

[1:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in the day of their distress.” The phrase is used three times in this verse; the Hebrew word translated “distress” (אֵידָם, ’edam) is a wordplay on the name Edom. For stylistic reasons and to avoid monotony, in the present translation this phrase is rendered: “when they experienced distress,” “when they suffered distress,” and “when they endured distress.”

[1:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “you, also you.”

[1:13]  ¹² tn Heb “in the day of his distress.” In this and the following phrase at the end of v. 13 the suffix is 3rd person masculine singular. As collective singulars both occurrences have been translated as plurals (“they suffered distress…endured distress” rather than “he suffered distress…endured distress”).

[1:13]  ¹³ tc In the MT the verb is feminine plural, but the antecedent is unclear. The Hebrew phrase תִּשְׁלַחְנָה (tishlakhnah) here should probably be emended to read תִּשְׁלַח יָד (tishlakh yad), although yad (“hand”) is not absolutely essential to this idiom.

[1:13]  ¹⁴ tn See the note on the phrase “suffered distress” in the previous line.

[1:17]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “will be a fugitive.” This is a collective singular. Cf. NCV “some will escape the judgment.”

[1:17]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “dispossess.” This root is repeated in the following line to emphasize poetic justice: The punishment will fit the crime.

[1:17]  ¹⁸ 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).