Category:Book of Obadiah

THE PROPHECY OF OBADIAH

'Obadiah, whose name is interpreted THE SERVANT OF THE LORD, is believed to have prophesied about the same time as Hosea, JOEL, and AMOS: though some of the Hebrews, who believe him to be the same with ACHAB's steward, make him much more ancient. His prophecy is the shortest of any in number of words, but yields to none, says ST. JEROME, in the sublimity of mysteries. It contains but one chapter.'

Obadiah Chapter 1
The destruction of Edom for their pride: and the wrongs they did to Jacob: the salvation and victory of Israel.

'''1:1. The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God to Edom: We have heard a rumor from the Lord, and He has sent an ambassador to the nations: Arise, and let us rise up to battle against him.'''

1:2. Behold I have made you small among the nations: you are exceeding contemptible.

1:3. The pride of your heart has lifted you up, who dwells in the clefts of the rocks, and setts up your throne on high: who says in your heart: Who shall bring me down to the ground?

1:4. Though you be exalted as an eagle, and though you set your nest among the stars: thence will I bring you down, says the Lord.

'''1:5. If thieves had gone in to you, if robbers by night, how would you have held your peace? Would they not have stolen until they had enough? If the grapegatherers had come in to you, would they not have left you at the least a cluster?'''

1:6. How have they searched Esau, how have they sought out his hidden things?

1:7. They have sent you out even to the border: all the men of thy confederacy have deceived you: the men of your peace have prevailed against you: they that eat with you shall lay snares under you: there is no wisdom in him.

1:8. Shall not I in that day, says the Lord, destroy the wise out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau?

1:9. Your valiant men of the south shall be afraid, that man may be cut off from the mount of Esau.

1:10. For the slaughter, and for the iniquity against your brother Jacob, confusion shall cover you, and you shall perish forever.

1:11. In the day when you stood against him, when strangers carried away his army captive, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem: you also was as one of them.

1:12. But you shall not look on in the day of your brother, in the day of his leaving his country: and you shall not rejoice over the children of Judah, in the day of their destruction: and you shall not magnify your mouth in the day of distress.

You shall not look, etc. . .or, you should not, etc. It is a reprehension for what they had done, and at the same time a declaration that these things should not pass unpunished.--Ibid. You shall not magnify your mouth. . .That is, you shall not speak arrogantly against the children of Judah as insulting them in their distress.

1:13. Neither shall you enter into the gate of my people in the day of their ruin: neither shall you also look on in his evils in the day of his calamity: and you shall not be sent out against his army in the day of his desolation.

1:14. Neither shall you stand in the crossways to kill them that flee: and you shall not shut up them that remain of him in the day of tribulation.

1:15. For the day of the Lord is at hand upon all nations: as you have done, so shall it be done to you: he will turn your reward upon your own head.

1:16. For as you have drunk upon my holy mountain, so all nations shall drink continually: and they shall drink, and sup up, and they shall be as though they were not.

1:17. In Mount Zion shall be salvation, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess those that possessed them.

1:18. The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble: and they shall be kindled in them, and shall devour them: and there shall be no remains of the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken it.

1:19. They that are toward the south, shall inherit the mount of Esau, and they that are in the plains, the Philistines: and they shall possess the country of Ephraim, and the country of Samaria: and Benjamin shall possess Galaad.

1:20. The captivity of this host of the children of Israel, all the places of the Canaanites even to Sarepta: and the captivity of Jerusalem that is in Bosphorus, shall possess the cities of the south.

1:21. Deliverers shall come up into Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau: and the kingdom shall be for the Lord.