Malachi 1:3

1:3 and rejected Esau. ¹  I turned Esau’s ²  mountains into a deserted wasteland ³  and gave his territory ⁴  to the wild jackals.”

Psalms 137:7

137:7 Remember, O Lord, what the Edomites did

on the day Jerusalem fell. ⁵ 

They said, “Tear it down, tear it down, ⁶ 

right to its very foundation!”

Isaiah 11:14

11:14 They will swoop down ⁷  on the Philistine hills to the west; ⁸ 

together they will loot the people of the east.

They will take over Edom and Moab, ⁹ 

and the Ammonites will be their subjects.

Isaiah 34:5

34:5 He says, ¹⁰  “Indeed, my sword has slaughtered heavenly powers. ¹¹ 

Look, it now descends on Edom, ¹² 

on the people I will annihilate in judgment.”

Isaiah 34:10

34:10 Night and day it will burn; ¹³ 

its smoke will ascend continually.

Generation after generation it will be a wasteland

and no one will ever pass through it again.

Isaiah 63:1-6

The Victorious Divine Warrior

63:1 Who is this who comes from Edom, ¹⁴ 

dressed in bright red, coming from Bozrah? ¹⁵ 

Who ¹⁶  is this one wearing royal attire, ¹⁷ 

who marches confidently ¹⁸  because of his great strength?

“It is I, the one who announces vindication,

and who is able to deliver!” ¹⁹ 

63:2 Why are your clothes red?

Why do you look like someone who has stomped on grapes in a vat? ²⁰ 

63:3 “I have stomped grapes in the winepress all by myself;

no one from the nations joined me.

I stomped on them ²¹  in my anger;

I trampled them down in my rage.

Their juice splashed on my garments,

and stained ²²  all my clothes.

63:4 For I looked forward to the day of vengeance,

and then payback time arrived. ²³ 

63:5 I looked, but there was no one to help;

I was shocked because there was no one offering support. ²⁴ 

So my right arm accomplished deliverance;

my raging anger drove me on. ²⁵ 

63:6 I trampled nations in my anger,

I made them drunk ²⁶  in my rage,

I splashed their blood on the ground.” ²⁷ 

Lamentations 4:21-22

The Prophet Speaks:

ש (Sin/Shin)

4:21 Rejoice and be glad for now, ²⁸  O people of Edom, ²⁹ 

who reside in the land of Uz.

But the cup of judgment ³⁰  will pass ³¹  to you also;

you will get drunk and take off your clothes.

ת (Tav)

4:22 O people of Zion, ³²  your punishment ³³  will come to an end; ³⁴ 

he will not prolong your exile. ³⁵ 

But, O people of Edom, ³⁶  he will punish ³⁷  your sin ³⁸ 

and reveal ³⁹  your offenses!

Ezekiel 25:14

25:14 I will exact my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel. They will carry out in Edom my anger and rage; they will experience ⁴⁰  my vengeance, declares the sovereign Lord.’”

Ezekiel 35:9

35:9 I will turn you into a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

[1:3]  ¹ tn Heb “and I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated.” The context indicates this is technical covenant vocabulary in which “love” and “hate” are synonymous with “choose” and “reject” respectively (see Deut 7:8; Jer 31:3; Hos 3:1; 9:15; 11:1).

[1:3]  ² tn Heb “his”; the referent (Esau) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:3]  ³ tn Heb “I set his mountains as a desolation.”

[1:3]  ⁴ tn Or “inheritance” (so NIV, NLT).

[137:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom, the day of Jerusalem.”

[137:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “lay [it] bare, lay [it] bare.”

[11:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “fly.” Ephraim/Judah are compared to a bird of prey.

[11:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “on the shoulder of Philistia toward the sea.” This refers to the slopes of the hill country west of Judah. See HALOT 506 s.v. כָּתֵף.

[11:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “Edom and Moab [will be the place of] the outstretching of their hand,” i.e., included in their area of jurisdiction (see HALOT 648 s.v. ח(וֹ)מִשְׁלֹ).

[34:5]  ¹⁰ tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The Lord speaks at this point.

[34:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “indeed [or “for”] my sword is drenched in the heavens.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has תראה (“[my sword] appeared [in the heavens]”), but this is apparently an attempt to make sense out of a difficult metaphor. Cf. NIV “My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens.”

[34:5]  ¹² sn Edom is mentioned here as epitomizing the hostile nations that oppose God.

[34:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “it will not be extinguished.”

[63:1]  ¹⁴ sn Edom is here an archetype for the Lord’s enemies. See 34:5.

[63:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “[in] bright red garments, from Bozrah.”

[63:1]  ¹⁶ tn The interrogative particle is understood by ellipsis; note the first line of the verse.

[63:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “honored in his clothing”; KJV, ASV “glorious in his apparel.”

[63:1]  ¹⁸ tc The Hebrew text has צָעָה (tsa’ah), which means “stoop, bend” (51:14). The translation assumes an emendation to צָעַד (tsa’ad, “march”; see BDB 858 s.v. צָעָה).

[63:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I, [the one] speaking in vindication [or “righteousness”], great to deliver.”

[63:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and your garments like one who treads in a vat?”

[63:3]  ²¹ sn Nations, headed by Edom, are the object of the Lord’s anger (see v. 6). He compares military slaughter to stomping on grapes in a vat.

[63:3]  ²² tn Heb “and I stained.” For discussion of the difficult verb form, see HALOT 170 s.v. II גאל. Perhaps the form is mixed, combining the first person forms of the imperfect (note the alef prefix) and perfect (note the תי- ending).

[63:4]  ²³ tn Heb “for the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my revenge came.” The term גְּאוּלַי (gÿ’ulai) is sometimes translated here “my redemption,” for the verbal root גאל often means “deliver, buy back.” A גֹּאֵל (go’el, “kinsman-redeemer”) was responsible for protecting the extended family’s interests, often by redeeming property that had been sold outside the family. However, the responsibilities of a גֹּאֵל extended beyond financial concerns. He was also responsible for avenging the shed blood of a family member (see Num 35:19-27; Deut 19:6-12). In Isa 63:4, where vengeance is a prominent theme (note the previous line), it is probably this function of the family protector that is in view. The Lord pictures himself as a blood avenger who waits for the day of vengeance to arrive and then springs into action.

[63:5]  ²⁴ sn See Isa 59:16 for similar language.

[63:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and my anger, it supported me”; NIV “my own wrath sustained me.”

[63:6]  ²⁶ sn See Isa 49:26 and 51:23 for similar imagery.

[63:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and I brought down to the ground their juice.” “Juice” refers to their blood (see v. 3).

[4:21]  ²⁸ tn The phrase “for now” is added in the translation to highlight the implied contrast between the present joy of the Gentiles (4:21a) and their future judgment (4:21b).

[4:21]  ²⁹ tn Heb “O Daughter of Edom.”

[4:21]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the cup.” Judgment is often depicted as a cup of wine that God forces a person to drink, causing him to lose consciousness, red wine drooling out of his mouth – resembling corpses lying on the ground as a result of the actual onslaught of the Lord’s judgment. The drunkard will reel and stagger, causing bodily injury to himself – an apt metaphor to describe the devastating effects of God’s judgment. Just as a cup of poison kills all those who are forced to drink it, the cup of God’s wrath destroys all those who must drink it (e.g., Ps 75:9; Isa 51:17, 22; Jer 25:15, 17, 28; 49:12; 51:7; Lam 4:21; Ezek 23:33; Hab 2:16).

[4:21]  ³¹ tn The imperfect verb “will pass” may also be a jussive, continuing the element of request, “let the cup pass…”

[4:22]  ³² tn Heb “O Daughter Zion.”

[4:22]  ³³ tn Heb “your iniquity.” The noun עָוֹן (’avon) has a broad range of meanings, including: (1) iniquity, (2) guilt of iniquity, and (3) consequence or punishment for iniquity (cause-effect metonymical relation). The context suggests that “punishment for sin” is most appropriate here (e.g., Gen 4:13; 19:15; Exod 28:38, 43; Lev 5:1, 17; 7:18; 10:17; 16:22; 17:16; 19:8; 20:17, 19; 22:16; 26:39, 41, 43; Num 5:31; 14:34; 18:1, 23; 30:15; 1 Sam 25:24; 28:10; 2 Sam 14:9; 2 Kgs 7:9; Job 10:14; Pss 31:11; 69:28; 106:43; Prov 5:22; Isa 5:18; 30:13; 40:2; 53:6, 11; 64:5, 6; Jer 51:6; Lam 4:22; 5:7; Ezek 4:4-6, 17; 7:16; 14:10; 18:19-20; 21:30, 34; 24:23; 32:27; 35:5; 39:23; 44:10, 12).

[4:22]  ³⁴ tn Heb “will be completed.” The perfect tense verb תַּם (tam), Qal perfect 3rd person masculine singular from תָּמַם (tamam, “to be complete”), could be taken as a precative perfect expressing a request (“may your punishment be complete”). The translation understands it as an example of the so-called “prophetic perfect.” The perfect tense often describes actions that are viewed as complete (normally past- or present-time events). When the perfect tense describes a future event, it often depicts it as “complete,” that is, “as good as done” or certain to take place from the viewpoint of the prophet. Thus, by using the perfect tense, Jeremiah may be emphasizing the certainty that the exile will eventually come to an end. It has also been viewed as a simple perfect “your punishment is ended.”

[4:22]  ³⁵ tn The verb לֹא יוֹסִיף (lo’ yosif) could be taken as a precative perfect, making a request to God. See the note at the beginning of the verse.

[4:22]  ³⁶ tn Heb “O Daughter of Edom.”

[4:22]  ³⁷ tn The verb פָּקַד (paqad) could be taken as a precative perfect, making a request to God. See the note at the beginning of the verse.

[4:22]  ³⁸ tn The noun עָוֹן (’avon) is repeated twice in this verse: its first occurrence means “punishment for iniquity” (v. 22a), and its second usage means “iniquity” (v. 22b). See preceding translator’s note on the broad range of meanings of this word. The repetition of the same root with different meanings creates an ironic polysemantic wordplay: Zion’s “punishment” for its sin is about to come to an end; however, the punishment for Edom’s “sin” is about to begin.

[4:22]  ³⁹ tn The verb גִּלָּה (gillah) could be taken as a precative perfect, making a request to God. See the note at the beginning of the verse.

[25:14]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “know.”