Text -- Obadiah 1:7 (NET)

1:7 All your allies will force you from your homeland! Your treaty partners will deceive you and overpower you. Your trusted friends will set an ambush for you that will take you by surprise!

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Oba 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.

² tn Heb “send”; NASB “send you forth”; NAB “drive”; NIV “force.”

³ tn Heb “to the border” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

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

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.”

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.”

⁷ tn Heb “beneath” (so NAB).

⁸ tn Heb “there is no understanding in him.”