Ezekiel 28:2

28:2 “Son of man, say to the prince ¹  of Tyre, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Your heart is proud ²  and you said, “I am a god; ³ 

I sit in the seat of gods, in the heart of the seas” –

yet you are a man and not a god,

though you think you are godlike. ⁴ 

Ezekiel 28:9

28:9 Will you still say, “I am a god,” before the one who kills you –

though you are a man and not a god –

when you are in the power of those who wound you?

Ezekiel 28:17

28:17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty;

you corrupted your wisdom on account of your splendor.

I threw you down to the ground;

I placed you before kings, that they might see you.

Ezekiel 29:3

29:3 Tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Look, I am against ⁵  you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,

the great monster ⁶  lying in the midst of its waterways,

who has said, “My Nile is my own, I made it for myself.” ⁷ 

Genesis 19:9

19:9 “Out of our way!” ⁸  they cried, and “This man came to live here as a foreigner, ⁹  and now he dares to judge us! ¹⁰  We’ll do more harm ¹¹  to you than to them!” They kept ¹²  pressing in on Lot until they were close enough ¹³  to break down the door.

Psalms 138:6

138:6 Though the Lord is exalted, he takes note of the lowly,

and recognizes the proud from far away.

Proverbs 16:5

16:5 The Lord abhors ¹⁴  every arrogant person; ¹⁵ 

rest assured ¹⁶  that they will not go unpunished. ¹⁷ 

Proverbs 16:18

16:18 Pride ¹⁸  goes ¹⁹  before destruction,

and a haughty spirit before a fall. ²⁰ 

Proverbs 18:12

18:12 Before destruction the heart ²¹  of a person is proud,

but humility comes ²²  before honor. ²³ 

Proverbs 21:4

21:4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart –

the agricultural product ²⁴  of the wicked is sin.

Isaiah 3:9

3:9 The look on their faces ²⁵  testifies to their guilt; ²⁶ 

like the people of Sodom they openly boast of their sin. ²⁷ 

Too bad for them! ²⁸ 

For they bring disaster on themselves.

Isaiah 16:6

16:6 We have heard about Moab’s pride,

their great arrogance,

their boasting, pride, and excess. ²⁹ 

But their boastful claims are empty! ³⁰ 

Daniel 4:30

4:30 The king uttered these words: “Is this not the great Babylon that I have built for a royal residence ³¹  by my own mighty strength ³²  and for my majestic honor?”

Daniel 4:37

4:37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, for all his deeds are right and his ways are just. He is able to bring down those who live ³³  in pride.

Daniel 5:23

5:23 Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. You brought before you the vessels from his temple, and you and your nobles, together with your wives and concubines, drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone – gods ³⁴  that cannot see or hear or comprehend! But you have not glorified the God who has in his control ³⁵  your very breath and all your ways!

Obadiah 1:3

1:3 Your presumptuous heart ³⁶  has deceived you –

you who reside in the safety of the rocky cliffs, ³⁷ 

whose home is high in the mountains. ³⁸ 

You think to yourself, ³⁹ 

‘No one can ⁴⁰  bring me down to the ground!’ ⁴¹ 

Obadiah 1:1

God’s Judgment on Edom

1:1 The vision ⁴²  that Obadiah ⁴³  saw. ⁴⁴ 

The Lord God ⁴⁵  says this concerning ⁴⁶  Edom: ⁴⁷ 

Edom’s Approaching Destruction

We have heard a report from the Lord.

An envoy was sent among the nations, saying, ⁴⁸ 

“Arise! Let us make war against Edom!” ⁴⁹ 

Obadiah 1:5

1:5 “If thieves came to rob you ⁵⁰  during the night, ⁵¹ 

they would steal only as much as they wanted! ⁵² 

If grape pickers came to harvest your vineyards, ⁵³ 

they would leave some behind for the poor! ⁵⁴ 

But you will be totally destroyed! ⁵⁵ 

[28:2]  ¹ tn Or “ruler” (NIV, NCV).

[28:2]  ² tn Heb “lifted up.”

[28:2]  ³ tn Or “I am divine.”

[28:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “and you made your heart (mind) like the heart (mind) of gods.”

[29:3]  ⁵ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

[29:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “jackals,” but many medieval Hebrew mss read correctly “the serpent.” The Hebrew term appears to refer to a serpent in Exod 7:9-10, 12; Deut 32:33; and Ps 91:13. It also refers to large creatures that inhabit the sea (Gen 1:21; Ps 148:7). In several passages it is associated with the sea or with the multiheaded sea monster Leviathan (Job 7:12; Ps 74:13; Isa 27:1; 51:9). Because of the Egyptian setting of this prophecy and the reference to the creature’s scales (v. 4), many understand a crocodile to be the referent here (e.g., NCV “a great crocodile”; TEV “you monster crocodile”; CEV “a giant crocodile”).

[29:3]  ⁷ sn In Egyptian theology Pharaoh owned and controlled the Nile. See J. D. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament, 240-44.

[19:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “approach out there” which could be rendered “Get out of the way, stand back!”

[19:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “to live as a resident alien.”

[19:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and he has judged, judging.” The infinitive absolute follows the finite verbal form for emphasis. This emphasis is reflected in the translation by the phrase “dares to judge.”

[19:9]  ¹¹ tn The verb “to do wickedly” is repeated here (see v. 7). It appears that whatever “wickedness” the men of Sodom had intended to do to Lot’s visitors – probably nothing short of homosexual rape – they were now ready to inflict on Lot.

[19:9]  ¹² tn Heb “and they pressed against the man, against Lot, exceedingly.”

[19:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “and they drew near.”

[16:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “an abomination of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) is a subjective genitive: “the Lord abhors.”

[16:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “every proud of heart”; NIV “all the proud of heart.” “Heart” is the genitive of specification; the phrase is talking about people who have proud hearts, whose ideas are arrogant. These are people who set themselves presumptuously against God (e.g., 2 Chr 26:16; Ps 131:1; Prov 18:12).

[16:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “hand to hand.” This idiom means “you can be assured” (e.g., Prov 11:21).

[16:5]  ¹⁷ tc The LXX has inserted two couplets here: “The beginning of a good way is to do justly, // and it is more acceptable with God than to do sacrifices; // he who seeks the Lord will find knowledge with righteousness, // and they who rightly seek him will find peace.” C. H. Toy reminds the reader that there were many proverbs in existence that sounded similar to those in the book of Proverbs; these lines are in the Greek OT as well as in Sirach (Proverbs [ICC], 321-22).

[16:18]  ¹⁸ sn The two lines of this proverb are synonymous parallelism, and so there are parasynonyms. “Pride” is paired with “haughty spirit” (“spirit” being a genitive of specification); and “destruction” is matched with “a tottering, falling.”

[16:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “[is] before destruction.”

[16:18]  ²⁰ sn Many proverbs have been written in a similar way to warn against the inevitable disintegration and downfall of pride. W. McKane records an Arabic proverb: “The nose is in the heavens, the seat is in the mire” (Proverbs [OTL], 490).

[18:12]  ²¹ sn The term “heart” is a metonymy of subject, referring to the seat of the spiritual and intellectual capacities – the mind, the will, the motivations and intentions. Proud ambitions and intentions will lead to a fall.

[18:12]  ²² tn Heb “[is] before honor”; cf. CEV “humility leads to honor.”

[18:12]  ²³ sn The way to honor is through humility (e.g., Prov 11:2; 15:33; 16:18). The humility and exaltation of Jesus provides the classic example (Phil 2:1-10).

[21:4]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the tillage [נִר, nir] of the wicked is sin” (so NAB). The subject picks up the subjects of the first half of the verse, indicating they are equal – the tillage consists of the arrogance and pride. The word “tillage” is figurative, of course, signifying that the agricultural product (the point of the comparison) of the wicked is sin. The relationship between the ideas is then problematic. Are pride and arrogance what the wicked produce? Some (ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV) have followed the LXX and Tg. Prov 21:4 to read “lamp” instead (נֵר, ner), but that does not solve the difficulty of the relationship between the expressions. It does, however, say that the life ( = lamp), which is arrogance and pride, is sin.

[3:9]  ²⁵ sn This refers to their proud, arrogant demeanor.

[3:9]  ²⁶ tn Heb “answers against them”; NRSV “bears witness against them.”

[3:9]  ²⁷ tn Heb “their sin, like Sodom, they declare, they do not conceal [it].”

[3:9]  ²⁸ tn Heb “woe to their soul.”

[16:6]  ²⁹ tn עֶבְרָה (’evrah) often means “anger, fury,” but here it appears to refer to boastful outbursts or excessive claims. See HALOT 782 s.v. עֶבְרָה.

[16:6]  ³⁰ tn Heb “not so his boasting.”

[4:30]  ³¹ tn Aram “house.”

[4:30]  ³² tn Aram “by the might of my strength.”

[4:37]  ³³ tn Aram “walk.”

[5:23]  ³⁴ tn Aram “which.”

[5:23]  ³⁵ tn Aram “in whose hand [are].”

[1:3]  ³⁶ tn Heb “the presumption of your heart”; NAB, NIV “the pride of your heart”; NASB “arrogance of your heart.”

[1:3]  ³⁷ 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]  ³⁸ 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]  ³⁹ tn Heb “the one who says in his heart.”

[1:3]  ⁴⁰ 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]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “Who can bring me down?” This rhetorical question implies a negative answer: “No one!”

[1:1]  ⁴² sn The date of the book of Obadiah is very difficult to determine. Since there is no direct indication of chronological setting clearly suggested by the book itself, and since the historical identity of the author is uncertain as well, a possible date for the book can be arrived at only on the basis of internal evidence. When did the hostile actions of Edom against Judah that are described in this book take place? Many nineteenth-century scholars linked the events of the book to a historical note found in 2 Kgs 8:20 (cf. 2 Chr 21:16-17): “In [Jehoram’s] days Edom rebelled from under the hand of Judah and established a king over themselves.” If this is the backdrop against which Obadiah should be read, it would suggest a ninth-century b.c. date for the book, since Jehoram reigned ca. 852-841 b.c. But the evidence presented for this view is not entirely convincing, and most contemporary Old Testament scholars reject a ninth-century scenario. A more popular view, held by many biblical scholars from Luther to the present, understands the historical situation presupposed in the book to be the Babylonian invasion of Judah in the sixth century (cf. Ps 137:7; Lam 4:18-22; Ezek 25:12-14; 35:1-15). Understood in this way, Obadiah would be describing a situation in which the Edomites assisted in the Babylonian sack of Jerusalem. Although it must be admitted that a sixth-century setting for the book of Obadiah cannot be proven, the details of the book fit reasonably well into such a context. Other views on the dating of the book, such as an eighth-century date in the time of Ahaz (ca. 732-716 b.c.) or a fifth-century date in the postexilic period, are less convincing. Parallels between the book of Obadiah and Jer 49:1-22 clearly suggest some kind of literary dependence, but it is not entirely clear whether Jeremiah drew on Obadiah or whether Obadiah drew upon Jeremiah, In any case, the close relationship between Obadiah and Jer 49 might suggest the sixth-century setting.

[1:1]  ⁴³ sn The name Obadiah in Hebrew means “servant of the Lord.” A dozen or so individuals in the OT have this name, none of whom may be safely identified with the author of this book. In reality we know very little about this prophet with regard to his exact identity or historical circumstances.

[1:1]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “the vision of Obadiah” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “This is the prophecy of Obadiah.”

[1:1]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “Lord Lord.” The phrase אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה (’adonay yÿhvih) is customarily rendered by Jewish tradition as “Lord God.” Cf. NIV, TEV, NLT “Sovereign Lord.”

[1:1]  ⁴⁶ tn The Hebrew preposition לְ (lÿ) is better translated here “concerning” (so KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV, NLT) or “about” (so NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV) Edom rather than “to” Edom, although much of the book does speak directly to Edom.

[1:1]  ⁴⁷ sn The name Edom derives from a Hebrew root that means “red.” Edom was located to the south of the Dead Sea in an area with numerous rocky crags that provided ideal military advantages for protection. Much of the sandstone of this area has a reddish color. The Edomites were descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob (Gen 25:19-26).

[1:1]  ⁴⁸ tn Although the word “saying” is not in the Hebrew text, it has been supplied in the translation because what follows seems to be the content of the envoy’s message. Cf. ASV, NASB, NCV, all of which supply “saying”; NIV, NLT “to say.”

[1:1]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “Arise, and let us arise against her in battle!” The term “Edom” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation to specify the otherwise ambiguous referent of the term “her.”

[1:5]  ⁵⁰ 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]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “If thieves came to you, or if plunderers of the night” (NRSV similar). The repetition here adds rhetorical emphasis.

[1:5]  ⁵² 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]  ⁵³ 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]  ⁵⁴ 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]  ⁵⁵ 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.