Obadiah 1:6

1:6 How the people of Esau ¹  will be thoroughly plundered! ² 

Their ³  hidden valuables will be ransacked! ⁴ 

Obadiah 1:11

1:11 You stood aloof ⁵  while strangers took his army ⁶  captive,

and foreigners advanced to his gates. ⁷ 

When they cast lots ⁸  over Jerusalem, ⁹ 

you behaved as though you were in league ¹⁰  with them.

Obadiah 1:14

1:14 You should not have stood at the fork in the road ¹¹  to slaughter ¹²  those trying to escape. ¹³ 

You should not have captured their refugees when they suffered adversity. ¹⁴ 

Obadiah 1:12-13

1:12 You should not ¹⁵  have gloated ¹⁶  when your relatives ¹⁷  suffered calamity. ¹⁸ 

You should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah when they were destroyed. ¹⁹ 

You should not have boasted ²⁰  when they suffered adversity. ²¹ 

1:13 You should not have entered the city ²²  of my people when they experienced distress. ²³ 

You should not have joined ²⁴  in gloating over their misfortune when they suffered distress. ²⁵ 

You should not have looted ²⁶  their wealth when they endured distress. ²⁷ 

Obadiah 1:3

1:3 Your presumptuous heart ²⁸  has deceived you –

you who reside in the safety of the rocky cliffs, ²⁹ 

whose home is high in the mountains. ³⁰ 

You think to yourself, ³¹ 

‘No one can ³²  bring me down to the ground!’ ³³ 

[1:6]  ¹ tn Heb “Esau.” The name Esau here is a synecdoche of part for whole referring to the Edomites. Cf. “Jacob” in v. 10, where the meaning is “Israelites.”

[1:6]  ² tn Heb “How Esau will be searched!”; NAB “How they search Esau.” The Hebrew verb חָפַשׂ (khafas, “to search out”) is used metonymically here for plundering the hidden valuables of a conquered people (e.g., 1 Kgs 20:6).

[1:6]  ³ tn Heb “his” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); this is singular agreeing with “Esau” in the previous line.

[1:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “searched out” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “pillaged”; TEV “looted”; NLT “found and taken.” This pictures the violent action of conquering warriors ransacking the city in order to loot and plunder its valuables.

[1:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the day of your standing”; NAB “On the day when you stood by.”

[1:11]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tc The present translation follows the Qere which reads the plural (“gates”) rather than the singular.

[1:11]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “like one from them”; NASB “You too were as one of them.”

[1:14]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to cut off” (so KJV, NRSV); NASB, NIV “to cut down.”

[1:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “his fugitives”; NAB, CEV “refugees.”

[1:14]  ¹² tn Heb “in the day of distress” (so KJV, ASV).

[1:12]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “your brother” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); NCV “your brother Israel.”

[1:12]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in the day of their destruction” (so KJV, NASB, NIV); NAB, NRSV “on the day of their ruin.”

[1:12]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “in the day of adversity”; NASB “in the day of their distress.”

[1:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the gate.” The term “gate” here functions as a synecdoche for the city as a whole, which the Edomites plundered.

[1:13]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “you, also you.”

[1:13]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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]  ²² tn See the note on the phrase “suffered distress” in the previous line.

[1:3]  ²¹ tn Heb “the presumption of your heart”; NAB, NIV “the pride of your heart”; NASB “arrogance of your heart.”

[1:3]  ²² 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]  ²³ 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]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the one who says in his heart.”

[1:3]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Who can bring me down?” This rhetorical question implies a negative answer: “No one!”