Commentary on the Holy Bible

God is here represented as summoning the nations against Edom, and declaring that his strongholds should not save him, 1—4; that not a remnant, not a gleaning, should be left of him, 5; that the enemy would search out his people, and totally subdue them; and that none of their allies should stand by them, 6-9 He then enlarges on their particular offence, and threatens them with a speedy recompense, 10-16. The Babylonians accordingly subdued the Edomites, and expelled them from Arabia Petraa, of which they never afterwards recovered possession. The remaining verses contain a prophecy of the restoration of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, and of their victory over all their enemies, 17—21. Some commentators think that these last verses tcere fulfilled by the conquests of the Maccabees over the Edomites. See 1 Mace. v. 3-5, 65, &c.

Who was this prophet 1 where bom 1 of what countni 1 at what time did he prophesy 1 who were his parents 1 when and where did he die? are questions which h.ave been asked from the remotest antiquity; and which, to this day, have received no answer worthy

and let us rise up against her in r. Roman, battle.

of recording. There is a multitude of opinions concerning these points; and their multitude and discrepancy are the strongest proofs of their uncertainty. All that seems probable is, that, as he prophesied concerning the destruction of Edom, he flourished a

deceived thee, thou that dwcllest in the clefts '"' of the rock, whose habitation is high; <■ that saith in his heart. Who shall bring me down to the ground?

4 " Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and lliough tliou ^ set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.

5 If s thieves came to thee, if robbers by night, (how art thou cut off!) would they not

little before, or a little after, the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, which happened about^^re hundred and cighty-etghl years before Christ; and the destruction of Idumea by the same monarch, which took place a short time after; probably between 588 B. C. and 575 B. C, in the interval of the thirteen years which Nebuchadnezzar employed in the siege of Tyre, which heundertook immediately after the capture of Jerusalem.

Obadiah foretells the subduction of the Idumeans by the Chaldeans, and finally by the Jews, whom they had used most cruelly when brought low by other enemies. These prophecies have been literally fulfilled; for the Idumeans, as a nation, are totally extinct.

Whoever will be at the trouble to collate this short prophecy with the furly-ninth chapter of Jeremiah, will find a remarkable similarity, not only ia the sentiments and loords, but also in ichole verses. In the above chapter Jeremiah predicts the destruction of the Idumeans. Whether he copied Obadiah, or Obadiah copied him, cannot be determined; but it would be very strange if two prophets, unacquainted with each other, should speak of the same event precisely in the same terms. See the parallel texts in the margin, and the notes on Jer. xlix. 1, &c.

Verse 1. We have heard a rumom-] See Jer. xlix. 14, where the same expressions are found. The prophet shows that the enemies of Idumea had confederated against it, and that Jehovah is now summoning them to march directly against it.

Verse 2. / liare made thee small among the heathen] God ever attiiblites to» himself the rise and fall of nations. If they be great and prosperous, it is by God's providence; if they be low and depressed, it is by his justice. Compared with the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Syrians, Arabs, and other neighbouring nations, the Idumeans were a small people.

observes that all the southern part of Palestine, from

Eleutheropolis to Petra and Aialath, was full of caverns heivn out of the rocks, and that the people had subter- if the grape-gatherers came to oi. XLViii. 2. thee, '■ would they not leave R'?'Roman., '

6 How are the things of Esau searched out! how are his hidden things sought up!

7 All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border: '' the ' men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee; " thei/ that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee: ° there is none understanding " in

ranean dwellings similar to evens. Here they are said to dwell in the clefts of the rock, in reference to the caverns above mentioned. In these they conceived themselves to be safe, and thought that no power brought against them could dislodge them from those fastnesses. Some think that by ^'So sela, rock, Petra, the capital of Idumea, is intended.

Verse 4. Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle^ Though like this bird thou get into the highest cliff q/ the highest rock, it will not avail thee. To defend thee, when Jehovah has determined thy destruction, thy deepest caves and highest rocks will be equally useless. See Jer. xlix. 16.

Verse 5. If thieves came to thee] That is, if thieve entered thy dwellings, they would not have taken every thing; they would have laid hold on thy wealth; and carried off as much as they could escape with conveniently; if grape-gatherers entered thy vineyards, they would not have taken every bunch; some gleanings would have been left. But the Chaldeans have stripped thee bare; they have searched out all thy hidden things, ver. 6, they have left thee nothing. How art thou cut off! Thou art totally and irretrievably ruined! The prophet speaks of this desolation as if it had already taken place.

Verse 7. All the men of thy confederacy] The Chaldeans are here intended, to whom the Idumeans were attached, and whose agents they became in e.xercising cruelties upon the Jews.

Have brought thee even to the border] Have hemmed thee in on every side, and reduced thee to distress. Or, they have driven thee to thy border; cast thee out of thy own land into the hands of thine enemies.

The men that were at peace with thee] The men of thy covenant, with whom thou hadst made a league.

That eat thy bread] That professed to be thy_;?>7nest friends, have all joined together to destroy thee.

Have laid a wound] Placed a snare or trap under thee. See jVeivcome.

There is none understanding in him.] Private counsels and public plans are all in operation against thee; and yet thou art so foolish and infatuated as not to discern thy own danger.

The Edomites ai'e reproved

01. XL VIII. 2. saitli the Lord, even destroy the cif. annum 30. derslanding out of the mount

9 And thy i mighty men, 0 ' Teman, shall be dismayed, to tiie end that every one of the mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.

10 For thy ^violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and ' thou shalt be cut off for ever.

1 1 In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers "^ carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and ' cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.

12 But " thou shouldest not have ^looked on y the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have ^ rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldest thou have ^ spoken proudly in the day of distress.

OBADIAH. for their enmity against Israel.

entered into the gate ot my peo- oi. XLviii.z. pie in the day of their calamity; "R.^Rolna"!'."' yea, thou shouldest not have ''"■ »""■"" 30. looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hand on their '' substance in the day of their calamity.

14 Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of liis that did escape; neither shouldest tliou have " delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress.

15'' For the day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen: ' as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head.

16 f For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall s swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.

17 •'But upon Mount Zion ' shall be "^ deliverance, and ' there shall be holiness; and the

Verse 8. Shall I not — destroy the wise men] It appears, from Jer. xlix. 7, that the Edomites were remarkable for wisdom, comisel, and prudence. See on the above place.

Verse 9. Thy mighty men, O Temari] This was one of the strongest places in Idumea; and is put here, as in Amos i. 2, and elsewhere, for Idumea itself.

Verse 10. For thy violence against thy brother Jacob] By this term the Israelite! in general are understood; for the two brothers, — Jacob, from whom sprang the Jews, and Esau, from whom sprang the Idumeans or Edomites, — are here put for the whole people or descendants of both. We need not look for particular cases of the violence of the Edomites.igainst the Jews. Esau, their founder, was not more inimical to his brother Jacob, who deprived him of his birthright, than the Edomites uniformly were to the Jews. See 2 Chron. xxviii. 17, 18. They had even stimulated the Chaldeans, when they took Jerusalem, to destroy the temple, and level it with the ground. See Psa. cxxxvii. 7.

Verse 11. Thou stoodest on the other side] Thou not only didst not help thy brother when thou mightest, but thou didst assist his foes against him.

And cast lots] When the Chaldeans cast lots on the spoils of Jerusalem, thou didst come in for a share of the booty; " thou wast as one of them."

Verse 12. Thou shouldest not have looked] It shows * malevolent heart to rejoice in the miseries of those who have acted unkindly or wickedly towards us. The Edomites triumphed when they saw the judgments of God fall upon the Jews. This the Lord severely reprehends in verses 12-15. If a man have acted cruelly towards us, and God punish him for this cruelty, and we rejoice in it, we make his crime our own; and then, as we have done, so shall it be done unto us; see ver. 15. All these verses point out the part the Edomites took against the Jews when the Chaldeans besieged and took Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and divided the spoils.

Verse 14. Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway] They are represented here as having stood in the passes and defiles to prevent the poor Jews from escaping from the Chaldeans. By stopping these passes, they threw the poor fugitives back into the teeth of their enemies. They had gone so far in this systematic cruelty as to deliver up the few that had taken refuge among them.

Verse 15. The day of the Lord is near] God will not associate thee with him in the judgments which he inflicts. Thou also art guilty, and shalt have thy punishment in due course with the other sinful nations.

Verse 16. For as ye have drunk] This address is to the Jews. As ye have been visited and punished upon my holy mountain in Jerusalem, so shall other nations be punished in their respective countries. See Jer. xlix. 12.

Verse 17. But upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance] Here is a promise of the return from the Baby- oi. XLVIII.2. possessions.

'r' R°ornanr ' 1 8 And the house of Jacob cir. annum 30. m gljall be a fire, and the house

of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the Lord hath spoken it.

19 And they qfthe south " shall possess the mount of Esau; ° and they of the plain the Philistines: and they shall possess the fields

20 And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, even f unto Zarephath; and the captivity of Jerusalem, "i which is in Sepharad, ' shall possess the cities of the south.

2 1 And •= saviours shall come up on Mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the

kingdom shall be the Lord's.

lonish captivity. They shall come to Zion, and there they shall find safety; and it is remarkable that after their return they were gi-eatly befriended by the Persian kings, and by Alexander the Great and his successors; so that, whilst they ravaged the neighbouring nations, the Jews were unmolested. See Calmet.

And there sfiall be holiness] They shall return to God, separate themselves from their idols, and become a better people than they were when God permitted them to be carried into captivity.

The house of Jacob shall possess] They were restored to their former possessions. But this may refer also to their future restoration under the Gospel, when they shall be truly converted, and become holiness to the Lord; for salvation and holiness shall be the characteristics of Zion — the Christian Church, for ever.

A'ersc 18. The house of Jacob shall be afire] After their return from captivity, the Jeu-s, called here the house of Jacob and the house of Joseph, did break out as a flame upon the Idumeans; they reduced them into slavery; and obliged them to receive circumcision, and practise the rites of the Jewish religion. See 1 Mace. v. 3, &c.; 2 Mace. x. 15-23; and Joseph. Antiq., lib. xiii. c. 17.

There shall not be any remaining] As a people and a nation they shall be totally destroyed. This is the meaning; it does not signify that ei-ery individual shall be destroyed.

Verse 19. They of the south] The Jews who possessed the southern part of Palestine, should render themselves masters of the mountains of Idumea which were contiguous to them.

They of the plain] From Eleutheropolis to the Mediterranean Sea. In this and the following verse the prophet shows the different districts which should be occupied by the Israelites after their return from

The fields of Samaria] Alexander the Great gave Samaria to the Jews; and John Hyrcanus subdued the same country after his wars with the Syrians. See Josephns, contra App. lib. ii., and.\ntiq. lib. xiii., c. 18.

Benjamin shall possess Gilead.] Edom lay to the south; the Philistines to the west; Ephraim to the fiorth; and Gilead to the east. Those who returned

Verse 20. Zarephath] Sarepta, a city of the Si donians, 1 Kings xvii. 9. That is, they should pos sess the whole city of Phcenicia, called here that of the Canaanites.

Which is in Sepharad] This is a difficult word Some think the Bosphorus is meant; others, Spain, others, France; others, the Euphrates; others, some district in Chaldea; for there was a city called Siphora, in Mesopotamia, above the division of the Euphrates. Dr. Lightfoot says it was a part of Edom. Those who were captives among the Canaanites should possess the country of the Canaanites; and those whom the Edomites had enslaved should possess the cities of their masters. See Newcome and Lowth.

Verse 21. And saviours shall come up] Certain persons whom God may choose to be deliverers of his people; such as Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Maccabees.

Some think these saviours, D"i'''t!'10 moshirm, mean the apostles of our Lord. Several M.S.S. have D'i'B'13 mushaim, the preserved; those that are saved, i. e., they who were delivered from the captivity; and those of Mount Zion shall _;wrf^p, that is, shall execute judgment on the Edomites. And as the Asmonean princes joined the priesthood to the state, it might be what the prophet means when he says, " the kingdom shall be the Lord's," the high priest having both the civil and ecclesiastical power in his own hands. And these actually were masters of Edom, and judged and governed the mountain of Esau. And thus this prophecy appears to have had a very literal fulfilment.

But if we take the whole as referring to the times of the Gospel, which I believe is not its primary sense, it may signify the conversion and restoration of the Jews, and that under Jesus Christ the original theocracy shall be restored; and thus, once more, in tha promised land, it may be said, — hammeluchoh laihovah vehayethah. " And the kingdom shall belong to Jehovah."

JONAH, the son of Amittai, the fifth of the minor prophets, was a Gahlean, a native ol Gath-hepher, which is believed to be the same as Jotapata, celebrated for the siege which Josephus the historian there maintained against the Roman army, a little before the^destiuction of Jerusalem. Gath-hepher was situated in the land of Zebulon, where was the canton of Ophir or Hepher. St. Jerome places it tivo miles from Sepphoris, in the way towards Tiberias. Some rabbins are of opinion that Jonah was the widow of Sarepta's son, restored to life by Elijah.

What we know with certainty of Jonah is, that God having commanded him to go to Nineveh, and there proclaim that the cry of the inhabitants' sins was come up to heaven and they were threatened with approaching ruin; instead of obeying these orders, he resolve'd to flee away, and go to Tarsus in Cilicia. For this purpose he embarked at Joppa; but the Lord having sent a violent tempest while he was upon the sea, the mariners, with great fear cried each of them to his god. In the meantime Jonah slept in the hold; whereupon the pilot wakened him; and they who were in the ship cast lots to know how this tempest was occasioned. The lot falling upon Jonah, they asked him who he was, and what he had done to bring upon them such a storm? He told them he was a Hebrew; that he worshipped the God of heaven; was one of his prophets; and fled from his presence to avoid goincr to Nineveh, whither he was sent. They asked him what was to be done to secure them from shipwreck? He replied: Throw me into the sea, and the tempest will cease.

God prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. This fish, according to some, was a whale; or, as others say, the lamia, canis carcharias, or the sea-dog. The prophet cominued in the fish three days and three nights. He cried unto the Lord, and the Lord heard him and commanded the fish to cast him upon the shore, as it is believed, at the foot of a mountain which projects a great way into the sea, between Berytus and Tripoli. Others think it was upon the coast of Cilicia, tioo leagues north from Alexandretta.

After this the word of the Lord came a second time to Jonah, and directed iiim to go to Nineveh When he came into the city, which was three days' journey in extent, about twenty-five leagues m circumference, Jonah walked up and down a whole day, crying out " In forty days Nineveh shall be destroyed." The Ninevites believed his word; they appointed a public fast to be observed; and, from the meanest of the people to the greatest, covered themselves with sackcloth. The king of Nineveh, supposed to have been Sardanapalus, known in profane authors by the name of Anacyndaraxa or Anahaxarus, descended from his throne and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat down upon ashes. God suff-ered himself to be moved with their repentance, and did not execute the sentence which he had pronounced against them.

Jonah was afflicted at this; and complained to God, saying, that he had always questioned whether, as being a God of clemency and mercy, he would not be flexible to their prayers After this, in all probability, Jonah returned from Nineveh into Judea.

The Greeks have for a long lime expressed their veneration for Jonah. There was a church dedicated to this prophet in the sixth age.

We do not know when it was that Jonah foretold how Jeroboam II., king of Israel should restore the kingdom of Samaria to its former extent, from the entrance of Hamath to the Dead Sea. Whether this was before or after his going to Nineveh, we cannot tell.