Obadiah 1:10 - Meaning and Application

When we hear Edom’s doom, and that doom is complete ruin, it is natural to ask, “Why? What evil did Edom do? What is the reason for God’s case against them?” No doubt Edom had many sins. They were a sinful people, weighed down with guilt. Yet the one crime that is named here as filling up their measure and bringing this judgment on them is the wrong they did to God’s people (Obadiah 1:10).

The charge is this: “Because of your violence against your brother Jacob.” This was an old and inherited bitterness against Israel, and for it shame would cover them, and they would be cut off forever. Injuries done to people are insults against God, the righteous God who loves justice and hates evil. As Judge of all the earth, he will defend those who are wronged and punish those who do wrong.

All violence and all injustice are sin, but the sin is even worse when it is done against one’s own people. It is violence against your brother, your close relation, the one you should have helped and put right if others had harmed him. How wicked it is, then, when you yourself wrong him. You are abusing your own mother’s son, and that makes the sin even more serious (Psalm 50:20). It is even worse when the harm is done against God’s people. Jacob was in covenant with God, loved by him, and protected by him. God takes such harm as harm done to himself, so that whoever touches Jacob touches the apple of God’s eye.

This is high treason, a crime against the highest ruler. So Edom should expect a shameful judgment and a ruin that would last forever. In the following verses, we learn more about the violence Edom showed against his brother Jacob, and the proof of this charge. It does not seem that the Edomites themselves invaded Israel. That was likely because they lacked the strength, not the will. They had enough hatred to do it if they could. But the main charge against them is their cruel behavior toward Judah and Jerusalem when those people were in distress and near destruction, likely at the hands of the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, or in another of the Jews’ calamities. This seems to have been their settled attitude toward them (Psalm 137:7; Ezekiel 25:12).

We are told what they did by being told what they should not have done (Obadiah 1:12-14): “You should not have looked, you should not have entered; but you did.” It is wise to compare what we have done with what we should have done. We should compare our conduct with God’s rule so we can see where we have gone wrong and done what we ought not to have done. We should not have been where we were at that time. We should not have been with those people. We should not have said what we said or taken the liberty we took. When sin is viewed in the light of God’s command, it appears very sinful.

Look first at Judah and Jerusalem’s condition when the Edomites behaved so basely and mocked them. It was a day of distress for them, and Obadiah calls it the day of their calamity three times (Obadiah 1:13). For the Edomites, it was a time of peace and prosperity, while Israel was in trouble. Judgment often begins with God’s own house, and children are corrected while outsiders are left alone. It was also a day of destruction, when city and countryside were laid waste. Foreigners had entered Jerusalem’s gates, the city had been broken open after a long siege, and the officers of the king of Babylon sat in the gates as judges over the land. They cast lots for Jerusalem’s spoil, like soldiers dividing up the clothes of Christ, or deciding what parts of the city and its goods each conqueror would take.

It was also a day when strangers carried away his forces (Obadiah 1:11), taking the soldiers prisoner and dragging them off in shame and poverty to their own land, or taking such a large number that they seemed like an army. It was a day when your brother, who had long lived at home in his own land, became a stranger and exile in a foreign land. In such a time, the Edomites, as neighbors and brothers, should have pitied and helped, grieved with them and comforted them, and trembled at the thought that their own turn could come next. If this was done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry?

Now consider how the Edomites acted in that distress, for which they are condemned. They looked with pleasure on God’s people’s suffering. They stood on the other side, far off, when they should have come to help their distressed neighbors. They looked on their trouble with a cold, unconcerned eye, like the priest and Levite who passed by the wounded man. Those who stand by and watch their neighbors’ troubles, when they are able to help, will have much to answer for. But Edom did more than watch. They looked with scorn, with satisfaction, and with delight. They laughed to see Israel in trouble and said, “Aha! This is what we wanted.” They fed their eyes on the sad sight of Jerusalem’s ruin, as people who had long hoped for it and wished to see it.

We must be careful with the way we look at our brothers’ sufferings. If we cannot look with sympathy and tenderness, it is better not to look at all. “You should not have looked,” as you did, “on the day of your brother.” They also celebrated and insulted them, mocking their sorrow and making themselves and their companions merry over it. They rejoiced over the children of Judah on the day of their destruction. They did not even hide the pleasure they took in Judah’s fall. Instead, they openly declared it and spoke rudely and proudly to them. They rejoiced, cheered, and trampled on them.

People have the spirit of Edom when they take joy in anyone’s troubles, especially in the trouble of Israelites, God’s people. Edomites also spoke proudly against Israel. They mocked the suffering Jews and looked down on them, while boasting about Edom’s own safety and success. They acted as if the reversal proved Esau was now loved and Jacob was rejected.

Those who are lifted up by other people’s shame should expect to be brought low themselves. Pride over another person’s humiliation will end in humiliation of its own.

Edom went even further. They entered the gate of God’s people when Jerusalem was in distress and seized their property (Obadiah 1:13). They did not help conquer them, but they joined in the plundering and tried to get a share of the spoil. They excused themselves by saying they might as well take it as let it be lost, but they were still taking what did not belong to them.

Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, but Edom became guilty too by meddling with the loot. They were like an accomplice after the fact, sharing in the crime and answerable for it. People only harm themselves when they try to get rich from the ruins of God’s people. They deceive themselves if they think they can call property their own just because they can grab it in a day of disaster.

Edom did even worse than robbery, they murdered their own brothers in the day of calamity (Obadiah 1:14). When the Chaldeans, the Babylonian army, were killing the Jews, many tried to escape. But the Edomites cruelly blocked the roads where several paths met and stopped the fleeing people. Some they killed themselves, and others they handed over to the pursuers to please the conquerors.

They should never have treated helpless people that way. They had a chance to protect those who had never done them harm, but instead they betrayed them. This is what the tender mercies of the wicked look like, shallow and cruel. It is painful to read of people fleeing one enemy only to fall by the hand of a treacherous neighbor they never feared. It also stirs righteous anger against those who could show such inhuman cruelty to people who deserved compassion.

In all this, Edom joined with Israel’s open enemies. Obadiah says, “Even you were like one of them,” meaning they were just as guilty as the attackers. Anyone who helps evil doers and supports their wicked acts will be counted with them and judged with them.

This violence will also bring shame on Edom. Soon they will find that the cup is passing around, the cup of trembling. When they themselves fall into the same kind of trouble that God’s people were facing, they will be ashamed to remember how they mocked them (Obadiah 1:15). The day of the Lord is near on all nations, when God will repay distress to those who distressed his church. Judgment may begin with God’s house, but it will not end there.

We should let that warning stop us from mocking others in their pain, because we do not know how quickly their case could become ours. God will repay the wrongs done to his people. As you have done, it will be done to you. The righteous God gives to nations and to individuals according to their deeds, and punishment often fits the sin itself. Those who have abused others often end up being abused in the same way.

God will find a time and a way to avenge the wrongs done to his people. As you drank on my holy mountain, that is, as God’s people drank deeply from the cup of suffering on Zion, so all the nations will drink in their turn (Obadiah 1:16). If God did not spare the city that bears his name, why should those who never knew his name expect to escape? See Jeremiah 25:29. This is part of the burden against Edom (Jeremiah 49:12). If those who should not have had to drink did drink, then surely Edom, the people under God’s wrath, will not go unpunished.

No, Edom will surely drink the cup of trembling. The cup will be taken from God’s people and given to those who afflicted them, as in Isaiah 51:22-23. In fact, their punishment will be worse than Israel’s distress. God’s people suffered only for a moment and then their trouble ended, but their enemies will drink the wine of God’s wrath continually (Revelation 14:10). The dregs of the cup are kept for the wicked of the earth (Psalm 75:8). They will drink it down to the bottom.

God’s people may drink the wine of astonishment for a time (Psalm 60:3), but they will recover and come back to themselves. The nations that oppose them, however, will drink and vanish as though they had never been. There will be nothing left of them, not even a memory. So let all your enemies perish, O Lord. So they will perish, if they do not turn.