Obadiah 1:18

1:18 The descendants of Jacob will be a fire,

and the descendants of Joseph a flame.

The descendants of Esau will be like stubble.

They will burn them up and devour them.

There will not be a single survivor ¹  of the descendants of Esau!”

Indeed, the Lord has spoken it.

Obadiah 1:11

1:11 You stood aloof ²  while strangers took his army ³  captive,

and foreigners advanced to his gates. ⁴ 

When they cast lots ⁵  over Jerusalem, ⁶ 

you behaved as though you were in league ⁷  with them.

Obadiah 1:14

1:14 You should not have stood at the fork in the road ⁸  to slaughter ⁹  those trying to escape. ¹⁰ 

You should not have captured their refugees when they suffered adversity. ¹¹ 

Obadiah 1:17

1:17 But on Mount Zion there will be a remnant of those who escape, ¹² 

and it will be a holy place once again.

The descendants ¹³  of Jacob will conquer ¹⁴ 

those who had conquered them. ¹⁵ 

Obadiah 1:9

1:9 Your warriors will be shattered, O Teman, ¹⁶ 

so that ¹⁷  everyone ¹⁸  will be destroyed ¹⁹  from Esau’s mountain!

Obadiah 1:5

1:5 “If thieves came to rob you ²⁰  during the night, ²¹ 

they would steal only as much as they wanted! ²² 

If grape pickers came to harvest your vineyards, ²³ 

they would leave some behind for the poor! ²⁴ 

But you will be totally destroyed! ²⁵ 

Obadiah 1:12-13

1:12 You should not ²⁶  have gloated ²⁷  when your relatives ²⁸  suffered calamity. ²⁹ 

You should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah when they were destroyed. ³⁰ 

You should not have boasted ³¹  when they suffered adversity. ³² 

1:13 You should not have entered the city ³³  of my people when they experienced distress. ³⁴ 

You should not have joined ³⁵  in gloating over their misfortune when they suffered distress. ³⁶ 

You should not have looted ³⁷  their wealth when they endured distress. ³⁸ 

[1:18]  ¹ tn Heb “will be no survivor”; NAB “none shall survive.”

[1:11]  ² tn Heb “in the day of your standing”; NAB “On the day when you stood by.”

[1:11]  ³ tn Or perhaps, “wealth” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). The Hebrew word is somewhat ambiguous here. This word also appears in v. 13, where it clearly refers to wealth.

[1:11]  ⁴ tc The present translation follows the Qere which reads the plural (“gates”) rather than the singular.

[1:11]  ⁵ sn Casting lots seems to be a way of deciding who would gain control over material possessions and enslaved peoples following a military victory.

[1:11]  ⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “like one from them”; NASB “You too were as one of them.”

[1:14]  ³ tn The meaning of the Hebrew word פֶּרֶק (pereq; here translated “fork in the road”) is uncertain. The word is found in the Hebrew Bible only here and in Nah 3:1, where it means “plunder.” In the present context it seems to refer to a strategic intersection or fork in a road where bands of Edomites apprehended Israelites who were fleeing from the attack on Jerusalem. Cf. NAB, NIV, NLT “crossroads”; NRSV “crossings.”

[1:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “to cut off” (so KJV, NRSV); NASB, NIV “to cut down.”

[1:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “his fugitives”; NAB, CEV “refugees.”

[1:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “in the day of distress” (so KJV, ASV).

[1:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “will be a fugitive.” This is a collective singular. Cf. NCV “some will escape the judgment.”

[1:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “house” (so most English versions); NCV, TEV “the people of Jacob.” The word “house” also occurs four times in v. 18.

[1:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “dispossess.” This root is repeated in the following line to emphasize poetic justice: The punishment will fit the crime.

[1:17]  ⁷ tc The present translation follows the reading מוֹרִשֵׁיהֶם (morishehem; literally, “those dispossessing them”; cf. NAB, NRSV, CEV) rather than מוֹרָשֵׁיהֶם (morashehem, “their possessions”) of the MT (cf. LXX, Syriac, and Vg, followed by KJV, ASV, NASB).

[1:9]  ⁵ sn Teman, like Sela, was a prominent city of Edom. The name Teman is derived from the name of a grandson of Esau (cf. Gen 36:11). Here it is a synecdoche of part for whole, standing for all of Edom.

[1:9]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew word used here (לְמַעַן, lÿma’an) usually expresses purpose. The sense in this context, however, is more likely that of result.

[1:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “a man,” meaning “every single person” here; cf. KJV “every one.”

[1:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “cut off” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NIV, NLT “cut down”; CEV “wiped out.”

[1:5]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “If thieves came to you, or if plunderers of the night” (NRSV similar). The repetition here adds rhetorical emphasis.

[1:5]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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.

[1:12]  ⁷ 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.

[1:12]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew expression “to look upon” often has the sense of “to feast the eyes upon” or “to gloat over” (cf. v. 13).

[1:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “your brother” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); NCV “your brother Israel.”

[1:12]  ¹⁰ 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.

[1:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in the day of their destruction” (so KJV, NASB, NIV); NAB, NRSV “on the day of their ruin.”

[1:12]  ¹² 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.

[1:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “in the day of adversity”; NASB “in the day of their distress.”

[1:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “the gate.” The term “gate” here functions as a synecdoche for the city as a whole, which the Edomites plundered.

[1:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “in the day of their distress.” The phrase is used three times in this verse; the Hebrew word translated “distress” (אֵידָם, ’edam) is a wordplay on the name Edom. For stylistic reasons and to avoid monotony, in the present translation this phrase is rendered: “when they experienced distress,” “when they suffered distress,” and “when they endured distress.”

[1:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “you, also you.”

[1:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in the day of his distress.” In this and the following phrase at the end of v. 13 the suffix is 3rd person masculine singular. As collective singulars both occurrences have been translated as plurals (“they suffered distress…endured distress” rather than “he suffered distress…endured distress”).

[1:13]  ¹² tc In the MT the verb is feminine plural, but the antecedent is unclear. The Hebrew phrase תִּשְׁלַחְנָה (tishlakhnah) here should probably be emended to read תִּשְׁלַח יָד (tishlakh yad), although yad (“hand”) is not absolutely essential to this idiom.

[1:13]  ¹³ tn See the note on the phrase “suffered distress” in the previous line.