Obadiah 1:5

1:5 “If thieves came to rob you ¹  during the night, ² 

they would steal only as much as they wanted! ³ 

If grape pickers came to harvest your vineyards, ⁴ 

they would leave some behind for the poor! ⁵ 

But you will be totally destroyed! ⁶ 

Obadiah 1:7

1:7 All your allies ⁷  will force ⁸  you from your homeland! ⁹ 

Your treaty partners ¹⁰  will deceive you and overpower you.

Your trusted friends ¹¹  will set an ambush ¹²  for ¹³  you

that will take you by surprise! ¹⁴ 

Obadiah 1:16

1:16 For just as you ¹⁵  have drunk ¹⁶  on my holy mountain,

so all the nations will drink continually. ¹⁷ 

They will drink, and they will gulp down;

they will be as though they had never been.

[1:5]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “If thieves came to you, or if plunderers of the night” (NRSV similar). The repetition here adds rhetorical emphasis.

[1:5]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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.

[1:7]  ⁷ 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.

[1:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “send”; NASB “send you forth”; NAB “drive”; NIV “force.”

[1:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “to the border” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[1:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the men of your peace.” This expression refers to a political/military alliance or covenant of friendship.

[1:7]  ¹¹ 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.”

[1:7]  ¹² 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.”

[1:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “beneath” (so NAB).

[1:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “there is no understanding in him.”

[1:16]  ¹³ tn The identification of the referent of “you” in v. 16a is uncertain. There are three major options: (1) On the surface, it would appear to be Edom, which is addressed in v. 15b and throughout the prophecy. However, when Edom is addressed, second person singular forms are normally used in the Hebrew. In v. 16a the Hebrew verb “you drank” is a plural form שְׁתִיתֶם (shÿtitem), perhaps suggesting that Edom is no longer addressed, at least solely. Perhaps Edom and the nations, mentioned in v. 15a, are both addressed in v. 16a. However, since the nations are referred to in the third person in v. 16b, it seems unlikely that they are addressed here. (2) Another option is to take the final mem (ם) on the Hebrew verb form (שְׁתִיתֶם) as an enclitic particle and revocalize the form as a singular verb (שָׁתִיתָ, shatita) addressed to Edom. In this case v. 16a would allude to the time when Edom celebrated Jerusalem’s defeat on Mount Zion, God’s “holy hill.” Verse 16b would then make the ironic point that just as Edom once drank in victory, so the nations (Edom included) would someday drink the cup of judgment. However, this interpretation is problematic for it necessitates taking the drinking metaphor in different ways (as signifying celebration and then judgment) within the same verse. (3) Another option is that the exiled people of Judah are addressed. Just as God’s people were forced to drink the intoxicating wine of divine judgment, so the nations, including those who humiliated Judah, would be forced to drink this same wine. However, the problem here is that God’s people are never addressed elsewhere in the prophecy, making this approach problematic as well.

[1:16]  ¹⁴ sn This reference to drinking portrays the profane activities of those who had violated Jerusalem’s sanctity. The following reference to drinking on the part of the nations portrays God’s judgment upon them. They will drink, as it were, from the cup of divine retribution.

[1:16]  ¹⁵ sn The judgment is compared here to intoxicating wine, which the nations are forced to keep drinking (v. 16). Just as an intoxicating beverage eventually causes the one drinking it to become disoriented and to stagger, so God’s judgment would cause the panic-stricken nations to stumble around in confusion. This extended metaphor is paralleled in Jer 49:12 which describes God’s imminent judgment on Edom, “If even those who did not deserve to drink from the cup of my wrath have to drink from it, do you think you will go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, but you also will certainly drink from the cup of my wrath.” There are numerous parallels between Obadiah and the oracle against Edom in Jer 49:1-22, so perhaps the latter should be used to help understand the enigmatic metaphor here in v. 16.