Obadiah 1:7

1:7 All your allies ¹  will force ²  you from your homeland! ³ 

Your treaty partners ⁴  will deceive you and overpower you.

Your trusted friends ⁵  will set an ambush ⁶  for ⁷  you

that will take you by surprise! ⁸ 

Obadiah 1:20

1:20 The exiles of this fortress ⁹  of the people of Israel

will take possession ¹⁰  of what belongs to

the people of Canaan, as far as Zarephath, ¹¹ 

and the exiles of Jerusalem ¹²  who are in Sepharad ¹³ 

will take possession of the towns of the Negev.

[1:7]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “send”; NASB “send you forth”; NAB “drive”; NIV “force.”

[1:7]  ³ tn Heb “to the border” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[1:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “the men of your peace.” This expression refers to a political/military alliance or covenant of friendship.

[1:7]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “beneath” (so NAB).

[1:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “there is no understanding in him.”

[1:20]  ⁹ tn Or “army” (TEV); KJV, NAB, NASB “host”; NIV “company.” Some text critics suggest revocalizing MT הַחֵל (hakhel, “the fortress”) to the place- name הָלָה (halah, “Halah”; so NRSV), the location to which many of the Israelite exiles were sent in the 8th century (2 Kgs 7:6; 18:11; 1 Chr 5:26). The MT form is from הַיִל (hayil, “strength”), which is used elsewhere to refer to an army (Exod 14:17; 1 Sam 17:20; 2 Sam 8:9), military fortress (2 Sam 20:15; 22:33), leaders (Exod 18:21) and even wealth or possessions (Obad 1:11, 13).

[1:20]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew text has no verb here. The words “will possess” have been supplied from the context.

[1:20]  ¹¹ sn Zarephath was a Phoenician coastal city located some ten miles south of Sidon.

[1:20]  ¹² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:20]  ¹³ sn The exact location of Sepharad is uncertain. Suggestions include a location in Spain, or perhaps Sparta in Greece, or perhaps Sardis in Asia Minor. For inscriptional evidence that bears on this question see E. Lipinski, “Obadiah 20,” VT 23 (1973): 368-70. The reason for mentioning this location in v. 20 seems to be that even though it was far removed from Jerusalem, the Lord will nonetheless enable the Jewish exiles there to return and participate in the restoration of Israel that Obadiah describes.