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Obadiah 1: What the Passage Says

66 claims across 21 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Obadiah 1 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Obadiah reports a vision about Edom, the nation descended from Esau. God says Edom's pride in its high rocky strongholds will not save it: its allies will turn on it, its wise men and fighters will be destroyed, and it will be plundered completely. The reason given is Edom's treatment of its relative Israel on the day Jerusalem fell, when Edom stood by, gloated, looted, and handed over those who escaped. The chapter ends with the day of the LORD coming on all the nations, and with the house of Jacob taking back its land while the kingdom belongs to the LORD.

Claim by Claim

  1. 1:1
    • This is the vision of Obadiah.
    • The Lord GOD speaks concerning Edom.
    • A report has been heard from the LORD.
    • An envoy has been sent among the nations.
    • The call goes out: Arise, and let us rise up against her for battle.
  2. 1:2
    • The LORD says he has made Edom small among the nations.
    • Edom is greatly despised.
  3. 1:3
    • The pride of Edom's heart has deceived him.
    • Edom dwells in the clefts of the rock.
    • Edom's dwelling place is high up.
    • Edom says in his heart, Who will bring me down to the ground?
  4. 1:4
    • Though Edom sets himself high like an eagle, and though he sets his nest among the stars, the LORD will bring him down from there.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
  5. 1:5
    • If thieves came to Edom, or robbers by night, they would steal only as much as they wanted.
    • Edom is utterly ruined, more thoroughly than thieves would leave him.
    • If grape gatherers came to Edom, they would leave gleanings behind.
  6. 1:6
    • Esau has been ransacked and searched out.
    • Esau's hidden treasures have been sought out.
  7. 1:7
    • All the men of Edom's covenant have driven him to the border.
    • The men at peace with Edom have deceived him.
    • The men at peace with Edom have prevailed against him.
    • Those who eat Edom's bread set something under him that is either a wound or a snare; the wording is ambiguous.
    • There is no understanding in him.
  8. 1:8
    • The LORD asks whether in that day he will not destroy the wise men from Edom.
    • The LORD asks whether he will not destroy understanding from the mountain of Esau.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
  9. 1:9
    • Edom's mighty men of Teman will be dismayed.
    • The purpose is that every man of the mountain of Esau be cut off by slaughter.
  10. 1:10
    • Because of Edom's violence against his brother Jacob, shame will cover Edom.
    • Edom will be cut off forever.
  11. 1:11
    • Edom stood aloof on the day of Jacob's trouble.
    • On that day strangers carried off Jacob's wealth.
    • Foreigners entered his gate.
    • They cast lots over Jerusalem.
    • Edom was like one of them.
  12. 1:12
    • Edom should not have gloated over the day of his brother, the day of his misfortune.
    • Edom should not have rejoiced over the sons of Judah in the day of their destruction.
    • Edom should not have spoken boastfully in the day of distress.
  13. 1:13
    • Edom should not have entered the gate of the LORD's people in the day of their calamity.
    • Edom should not have gloated over their affliction in the day of their calamity.
    • Edom should not have laid hands on their wealth in the day of their calamity.
  14. 1:14
    • Edom should not have stood at the crossroads to cut off his fugitives.
    • Edom should not have handed over his survivors in the day of distress.
  15. 1:15
    • The day of the LORD is near upon all the nations.
    • As Edom has done, it will be done to him.
    • Edom's dealing will return upon his own head.
  16. 1:16
    • As Edom's people drank on the LORD's holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually.
    • They will drink and swallow down.
    • They will be as though they had never existed.
  17. 1:17
    • On Mount Zion there will be escape.
    • It will be holy.
    • The house of Jacob will possess their possessions.
  18. 1:18
    • The house of Jacob will be a fire.
    • The house of Joseph will be a flame.
    • The house of Esau will be stubble.
    • They will set them ablaze and consume them.
    • There will be no survivor left to the house of Esau.
    • The LORD has spoken it.
  19. 1:19
    • Those of the Negev will possess the mountain of Esau.
    • Those of the lowland will possess the Philistines.
    • They will possess the field of Ephraim and the field of Samaria.
    • Benjamin will possess Gilead.
  20. 1:20
    • The exiles of this host of the children of Israel will possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath.
    • The exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad will possess the cities of the Negev.
  21. 1:21
    • Deliverers will go up on Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Esau.
    • The kingdom will belong to the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1
Edom was a small kingdom southeast of Judah, in the rugged highlands south of the Dead Sea (in modern Jordan). Its people traced their descent from Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, from whom Israel traced its descent, so the prophets speak of Edom and Israel as brother nations. Obadiah's name means "servant of the LORD"; nothing else about him is known, and this is the shortest book in the Hebrew Bible. Where the King James prints LORD in capital letters, the Hebrew has God's personal name; "Lord GOD" renders a doubled title, "my Lord" plus that name. "Heathen" in the King James simply means the nations, i.e. everybody who is not Israel; it carries no sneer. The "her" of the last line is Edom, spoken of as a woman, as nations and cities usually are in Hebrew.
1:3
Edom's towns were built on high sandstone ridges and in gorges reachable only by narrow passes, the later city of Petra lies in this region. The Hebrew word for "rock" here is *sela*, which was also the name of an Edomite stronghold, so the line can be heard both as "the clefts of the rock" and as a jab at the town of Sela.
1:4
Eagles build their nests on high cliffs where nothing can climb up to them. It was a common picture for being out of reach.
1:5
The point of the comparison is that even a disaster usually leaves something behind. Thieves take only what they can carry; grape-pickers always miss some fruit, and Israelite law in fact required harvesters to leave the gleanings for the poor. Edom's ruin will be more thorough than either.
1:6
Esau was Jacob's twin brother in Genesis, the older of the two, who sold his birthright and lost his father's blessing. Edom traced its ancestry to him, so "Esau" is used throughout this book as another name for the nation of Edom.
1:7
To eat someone's bread was to be their guest or treaty partner; agreements between nations were sealed with a shared meal, so "those who eat your bread" means Edom's own sworn allies. The Hebrew of the last part of this verse is damaged or obscure; "set a trap under you" and "you will not see it coming" are the best guesses among several, and older translations render it quite differently.
1:8
Edom had a reputation across the ancient Near East for wise men and shrewd counselors, Job's friend Eliphaz is called a Temanite, from Edom. Stripping away its wisdom is therefore taking away the thing Edom was known for.
1:9
Teman was a district, or a town, in Edom; poets often used the name for the whole country, the way "Fleet Street" can stand for the British press.
1:10
Israel and Edom were counted as descendants of two brothers, Jacob and Esau, so an attack by Edom on Judah was treated as violence within a family, which made it worse than ordinary warfare.
1:11
This points to the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 BC. Casting lots, throwing marked stones or sticks to decide by chance, was the standard way victorious armies divided up plunder and prisoners among themselves.
1:12
"Looked on" in the King James does not mean simply watched; the Hebrew means to stare with satisfaction at another's ruin. Standing by and enjoying it is the charge here, alongside the looting described next.
1:14
Fugitives escaping a captured city funnelled into a few mountain passes and road junctions. Edomites are accused of waiting at those points to kill the escapers or hand survivors back to the Babylonians for reward.
1:15
"The day of the LORD" was a fixed phrase among the prophets for a coming day when God settles accounts with the nations. "Reward" in the King James means what is due to you, good or bad, here it is punishment, not a prize.
1:16
The image is a cup of wine that a condemned nation is forced to drink until it staggers and falls; the prophets use it often for God's judgment. The first line is ambiguous in the Hebrew and readers have long taken it two ways: either the Edomites drank in triumph on the temple hill of Jerusalem when it fell, or the people of Judah drank the cup of punishment there first, and now the nations must drink it in turn.
1:17
Mount Zion is the ridge in Jerusalem where the temple stood; "holy" here means set apart for God and so kept clear of invaders. The Hebrew of the last phrase can mean either "will possess their own possessions" or "will dispossess those who dispossessed them"; the wording allows both.
1:18
The house of Jacob means Judah in the south; the house of Joseph means the northern tribes, descended from Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh, together, all Israel. Stubble is the dry stalks left standing after a harvest, which farmers burned off in a fast, complete blaze.
1:19
This is a sweep round the compass, listing land Israel had lost. The southern desert is the Negev, the dry country below Judah; the western foothills are the Shephelah, the low hills between the hill country and the Philistine coast. The Philistines held the coastal plain. Ephraim and Samaria were the heartland of the old northern kingdom, and Gilead the highlands east of the Jordan.
1:20
Zarephath was a Phoenician coastal town between Tyre and Sidon, marking the far northern limit of the territory. Where Sepharad was is unknown; guesses have included Sardis in western Asia Minor and a place in Media, and in later Jewish usage the name came to mean Spain, which is why Jews of that tradition are called Sephardi.
1:21
"Saviours" or "rescuers" translates the same word used for the leaders in the book of Judges, military deliverers who freed the people from an occupying power. It does not refer here to a single figure.

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