1:12 You should not 1 have gloated 2 when your relatives 3 suffered calamity. 4
You should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah when they were destroyed. 5
You should not have boasted 6 when they suffered adversity. 7
30:7 Alas, what a terrible time of trouble it is! 16
There has never been any like it.
It is a time of trouble for the descendants of Jacob,
but some of them will be rescued out of it. 17
1 tn In vv. 12-14 there are eight prohibitions which summarize the nature of the Lord’s complaint against Edom. Each prohibition alludes to something that Edom did to Judah that should not have been done by one “brother” to another. It is because of these violations that the Lord has initiated judgment against Edom. In the Hebrew text these prohibitions are expressed by אַל (’al, “not”) plus the jussive form of the verb, which is common in negative commands of immediate urgency. Such constructions would normally have the sense of prohibiting something either not yet begun (i.e., “do not start to …”) or something already in process at the time of speaking (i.e., “stop…”). Here, however, it seems more likely that the prohibitions refer to a situation in past rather than future time (i.e., “you should not have …”). If so, the verbs are being used in a rhetorical fashion, as though the prophet were vividly projecting himself back into the events that he is describing and urging the Edomites not to do what in fact they have already done.
2 tn The Hebrew expression “to look upon” often has the sense of “to feast the eyes upon” or “to gloat over” (cf. v. 13).
3 tn Heb “your brother” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); NCV “your brother Israel.”
4 tn Heb “in the day of your brother, in the day of his calamity.” This expression is probably a hendiadys meaning, “in the day of your brother’s calamity.” The Hebrew word נָכְרוֹ (nokhro, “his calamity”)_is probably a word-play on נָכְרִים (nokherim, “foreigners”) in v. 11.
5 tn Heb “in the day of their destruction” (so KJV, NASB, NIV); NAB, NRSV “on the day of their ruin.”
6 tn Or “boasted with your mouth.” The Hebrew text includes the phrase “with your mouth,” which is redundant in English and has been left untranslated.
7 tn Heb “in the day of adversity”; NASB “in the day of their distress.”
8 tn Heb “let us arise and let us go up.” The first cohortative gives the statement a sense of urgency.
9 tn The cohortative with the prefixed conjunction here indicates purpose or consequence.
10 tn Heb “day of distress.” See Ps 20:1 which utilizes similar language.
11 tn Heb “in the way in which I went.” Jacob alludes here to God’s promise to be with him (see Gen 28:20).
12 tn In the Hebrew text this verse begins with “they said to him” (cf. NRSV).
13 tn Or “rebuke” (KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV), or “correction.”
14 tn Or “contempt”; NAB, NIV, NRSV “disgrace.”
15 tn Heb “when sons come to the cervical opening and there is no strength to give birth.”
16 tn Heb “Alas [or Woe] for that day will be great.” For the use of the particle “Alas” to signal a time of terrible trouble, even to sound the death knell for someone, see the translator’s note on 22:13.
17 tn Heb “It is a time of trouble for Jacob but he will be saved out of it.”