1 Luther’s rendering, ‘‘ for their avarice shall come upon the head of all of them,” in which he follows the Vulgate, arose from pyya being con- escaping, God will pursue them with the sword, and slay them” (see Hengstenberg, Christology, ou this passage).
The thought is still further expanded in vers. 2-6. Ver. 2. “Tf they break through into hell, my hand will take them thence; and if they climb up to heaven, thence will I fetch them down. Ver. 3. And if they hide themselves upon the top of Carmel, [ will trace them, and fetch them thence; and if they conceal themselves from before mine eyes in the bottom of the sea, thence do [ command the serpent, and tt biteth them. Ver. 4. And if they go into captivity before their enemies, I will command the sword thence, and it slayeth them; and I direct my eye upon them for evil, and not for good.” The imperfects, with O88, are to be taken as futures. They do not assume what is impossible as merely hypothetical, in the sense of “if they should hide themselves;” but set forth what was no doubt in actual fact an impossible case, as though it were possible, in order to cut off every escape. For the cases mentioned in vers. 8a and 4a might really occur. Hiding upon Carmel and going into captivity belong to the sphere of possibility and of actual occurrence. In order to individualize the thought, that escape from the punishing arm of the Almighty is impossible, the prophet opposes the most extreme spaces of the world to one another, starting from heaven and hell, as the loftiest height and deepest depth of the universe, in doing which he has in all probability Ps. exxxix. 7, 8 floating before his mind. He commences with the height, which a man cannot possibly climb, and the depth, to which he cannot descend, to show that escape is impossible. 1nn, to break through, with 3, to make a hole into anything (lizek. vill. 8, xl. 5, 7). According to the Hebrew view, Sheol was deep in the interior of the earth. The head of Carmel is mentioned (see at Josh. xix. 26). The reference is not to the many caves in this promontory, which afford shelter to fugitives; for they are not found upon the head of Carmel, but for the most part on the western side (see v. Raumer, Pal. p. 44). The emphasis lies rather upon the head, as a height overgrown with trees, which, even if not very high (about 1800 feet; see at 1 Kings xviii. 19), yet, in comparison with the sea over which it rises, might appear to be of a very considerable height; in addition to which, the situation of Carmel, on the extreme western border of the kingdom of Israel, might also be taken into consideration. “ Whoever hides himself there, must assuredly know of no other place of security in the whole of the land besides. And if there is no longer any security there, there is nothing left but the sea.” But even the deep sea-bottom will not shelter from the vengeance of God. God commands the serpent, or summons the serpent to bite him. Nachash, here the water-serpent, called elsewhere livydthan ov tannin (Isa. xxvii. 1), a sea-monster, which was popularly supposed to be extremely dangerous, but which cannot be more exactly defined. Even by going into captivity, they will not be protected from the sword. ‘2¥3, not into captivity, but zn statu captivitatis: even if they should be among those who were wandering into captivity, where men are generally sure of their lives (see Lam. i. 5). For God has fixed His eye upon them, 2.é. has taken them under His special superintendence (cf. Jer. xxxix. 12); not, however, to shelter, to protect, and to bless, but ny, for evil, z.c. to punish them. “ The people of the Lord remain, under all circumstances, the object of special attention. They are more richly blessed than the world, but they are also more severely punished” (Hengstenberg).
To strengthen this threat, Amos proceeds, in vers. 5, 6, to describe Jehovah as the Lord of heaven and earth, who sends judgments upon the earth with omnipotent power. Ver. 5. “ And the Lord Jehovah of hosts, who toucheth the earth, and it melteth, and all the inhabitants thereupon mourn; and the whole of it riseth like the Nile, and sinketh like the Nile of Egypt. Ver. 6. Who buildeth His stories in heaven, and His vault, over the earth hath He founded it; who calleth to the waters of the sea, and poureth them out over the earth: Jehovah is His name.” This description of God, who rules with omnipotence, is appended, as in ch. iv. 13 and v. 8, without any link of connection whatever. We must not render it, “ The Lord Jehovah of hosts is He who toucheth the earth;’ but we must supply the connecting thought, “ And He who thus directeth His eye upon you is the Lord Jehovah of hosts, who toucheth the earth, and it melteth.” The melting or dissolving of the earth is, according to Ps. xlvi. 7, an effect produced by the Lord, who makes His voice heard in judgments, or “the destructive effect of the judgments of God, whose instruments the conquerors are” (Hengstenberg), when nations reel and kingdoms totter. The
Lord therefore touches the earth, so that it melts, when He dissolves the stability of the earth by great judgments (cf. Ps. Ixxv. 4). “Israel could not fail to test the truth of these words by painful experience, when the wild hordes of Assyria poured themselves over the western parts of Asia” (Hengstenberg). The following words, depicting the dissolution of the earth, are repeated, with very inconsiderable alterations, from ch. viii. 8: we have merely the omission of 7¥32), and the kal AYP substituted for the niphal mpwa, In ver. 6 there is evidently an allusion to the flood. God, who is enthroned in heaven, in the cloud-towers built above the circle of the earth, possesses the power to pour the waves of the sea over the earth by His simple word. Ma‘dloth is synonymous with nivey in Ps. civ. 3: upper rooms, lit. places to which one has to ascend. *Aguddéh, an arch or vault: that which is called rdéqia‘, the firmament, in other places. The heaven, in which God builds His stories, is the heaven of clouds; and the vault, according to Gen. i. 7, is the firmament of heaven, which divided the water above the firmament from the water beneath it. Consequently the upper rooms of God are the waters above the firmament, in or out of which God builds His stories (Ps. civ. 3), i.e. the cloud-tower above the horizon of the earth, which is raised above it like a vault. Out of this cloud-castle the rain pours down (Ps. civ. 13); and out of its open windows the waters of the flood poured down, and overflowed the earth (Gen. vii. 11). When God calls to the waters of the sea, they pour themselves over the surface of the earth. The waves of the sea are a figurative representation of the agitated multitude of nations, or of the powers of the world, which pour their waves over the kingdom of God (see at ch. vil. 4).
The Lord will pour out these floods upon sinful Israel, because it stands nearer to Him than the heathen do. Ver. 7. “Are ye not like the sons of the Cushites to me, ye sons of Israel? as the saying of Jehovah. Have I not brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines out of Caphtor, and Aram out of Kir?” With these words the prophet tears away from the sinful nation the last support of its carnal security, namely, reliance upon its election as the nation of God, which the Lord has practically confirmed by leading Israel up out of Egypt. Their election as the people of Jehovah was unquestionably a pledge that the Lord would not cast off His people, or suffer them to be destroyed by the heathen. But what the apostle says of circumcision in Rom. ii. 25 applied to this election also, namely, that it was of benefit to none but those who kept the law. It afforded a certainty of divine protection simply to those who proved themselves to be the children of Israel by their walk and conduct, and who faithfully adhered to the Lord. To the rebellious it was of no avail. Idolaters had become like the heathen. The Cushites are mentioned, not so much as being descendants of the accursed Ham, as on account of the blackness of their skin, which was regarded as a symbol of spiritual blackness (cf. Jer. xiii. 23). The expression “ sons (children) of the Cushites” is used with reference to the title “ sons (children) of Israel,’ the honourable name of the covenant nation. For degenerate Israel, the leading up cut of Egypt had no higher signification than the leading up of the Philistines and Syrians out of their former dwelling-places into the lands which they at present inhabited. These two peoples are mentioned by way of example: the Philistines, because they were despised by the Israelites, as being uncircumcised; the Syrians, with an allusion to the threat in ch. i. 5, that they should wander into exile to Kir. On the fact that the Philistines sprang from Caphtor, see the comm. on Gen. x. 14.
Election, therefore, will not save sinful Israel from destruction. After Amos has thus cut off all hope of deliverance from the ungodly, he repeats, in his own words in vers. 8 sqq., the threat already exhibited symbolically in ver.1. Ver. 8. “Behold, the eyes of the Lord Jehovah are against the sinful kingdom, and I destroy it from off the face of the earth; except that I shall not utterly destroy the house of Jacob: is the saying of Jehovah. Ver. 9. Mor, behold, I command, and shake the house of Israel among all nations, as (corn) is shaken tm a@ sieve, and not even a little grain falls to the ground. Ver. 10. All the sinners of my people will die by the sword, who say, The evil will not overtake or come to us.” The sinful kingdom is Israel; not merely the kingdom of the ten tribes however, but all Israel, the kingdom of the ten tribes along with Judah, the house of Jacob or Israel, which is identical with the sons of Israel, who had become like the Cushites, although Amos had chiefly the people and kingdom of the ten tribes in his mind. Bammamlakhah, not upon the kingdom, but against the kingdom. The Ne of the eye upon an object, is expressed ihe 2Y (ver. 4) or ON en Ps: xxxiv. 16); whereas 2 is used in relation to the object upon which anger rests (Ps. xxxiv. 17). Because the Lord had turned His eye towards the sinful kingdom, He must exterminate it,—a fate with which Moses had already threatened the nation in Dent. vi. 15. Nevertheless (‘2 DEX, “only that,” introducing the limitation, as in Num. xii. 28, Deut. xv. 4) the house of Jacob, the covenant nation, shall not be utterly destroyed. The “house of Jacob” is opposed to the “ sinful nation;”” not, however, so that the antithesis simply lies in the kingdom and people (regnum delebo, non populum), or that the “house of Jacob” signifies the kingdom of Judah as distinguished from the kingdom of the ten tribes, for the “ house of Jacob” is perfectly equivalent to the “ house of Israel” (ver. 9). The house of Jacob is not to be utterly destroyed, but simply to be shaken, as it were, in a sieve. The antithesis lies in the predicate M8ON, the sinful kingdom. So far as Israel, as a kingdom and people, is sinful, it is to be destroyed from off the face of the earth. But there is always a divine kernel in the nation, by virtue of its divine election, a holy seed out of which the Lord will form a new and holy people and kingdom of God. Consequently the destruction will not be a total one, a Paws WowN., The reason for this is introduced by dz (for) in ver. 9. The Lord will shake Israel among the nations, as corn is shaken in a sieve; so that the chaff fie away, and the dust and dirt fall to the ground, and only the good grains are left in the sieve. Such a sieve are the nations of the world, through which Israel is purified from its chaff, i.e. from its ungodly members. 73*rd7,, generally a bundle; here, according to its etymology, that which is compact or firm, ¢.e. solid grain as distinguished from loose chaff. In 2 Sam. xvii. 13 it is used in a similar sense to denote a hard piece of clay or a stone in a building. Not a single grain will fall to the ground, that is to say, not a good man will be lost (cf. 1 Sam. xxvi. 20). The self-secure sinners, however, who rely upon their outward connection with the nation of God (compare ver. 7 and ch. iii. 2), or upon their zeal in the outward forms of worship (ch. v. 21 sqq.), and fancy that the judgment cannot touch them (7¥2 DMP, to come to meet a person round about hin, 2.e. to come upon him from every side), will all perish by the sword. This threat is repeated at the close, without any formal link of connection with ver. 9, not only to prevent any abuse of the foregoing modification of the judgment, but also to remove this apparent discrepancy, that whereas in vers. 1-4 it is stated that not one will escape the judgment, according to ver. 8d, the nation of Israel is not to be utterly destroyed. In order to anticipate the frivolity of the ungodly, who always flatter themselves with the hope of escaping when there is a threatening of any general calamity, the prophet first of all cuts off all possibilities whatever in vers. 1-4, without mentioning the exceptions; and it is not till afterwards that the promise is introduced that the house of Israel shall not be utterly annihilated, whereby the general threat is limited to sinners, and the prospect of deliverance and preservation through the mercy of God is opened to the righteous. The historical realization or fulfilment of this threat took place, so far as Israel of the ten tribes was concerned, when their kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians, and in the case of Judah, at the overthrow of the kingdom and temple by the Chaldeans; and the shaking of Israel in the sieve is still being fulfilled upon the Jews who are dispersed among all nations.
Vers. 11-15. Tue Kinecpom or Gop ser ur.—Since God, as the unchangeable One, cannot utterly destroy His chosen people, and abolish or reverse His purpose of salvation, after destroying the sinful kingdom, He will set up the new and genuine kingdom of God. Ver. 11. “ On that day will F set up the fallen hut of David, and wall up their rents; and what ts destroyed thereof I will set up, and build it as in the days of eternity. Ver. 12. That they may take possession of the remnant of Edom, and all the nations upon which my name shall be called, is the saying of Jehovah, who doeth such things.” “In that day,” i.e. when the judgment has fallen upon the sinful kingdom, and all the sinners of the people of Jehovah are destroyed. Sukkah, a hut, indicates, by way of contrast to bayith, the house or palace which David built for himself upon Zion (2 Sam. v. 11), a degenerate condition of the royal house of David. This is placed beyond all doubt by the predicate népheleth, fallen down. As the stately palace supplies a figurative representation of the greatness and might of the kingdom, so does the fallen hut, which is full of rents and near to destruction, symbolize the utter ruin of the kingdom. If the family of David no longer dwells in a palace, but in a miserable fallen hut, its regal sway must have come to an end. The figure of the stem of Jesse that is hewn down, in Isa. xi. 1, is related to. this; except that the former denotes the decline of the Davidic dynasty, whereas the fallen hut represents the fall of the kingdom. There is no need to prove, however, that this does not apply to the decay of the Davidic house by the side of the great power of Jeroboam (Hitzig, Hofmann), least of all under Uzziah, in whose reign the kingdom of Judah reached the summit of its earthly power and glory. The kingdom of David first became a hut when the kingdom of Judah was overcome by the Chaldeans,—an event which is included in the prediction contained in vers. 1 sqq., and hinted at even in ch. ii. 5. But this hut the Lord will raise up again from its fallen condition. This raising up is still further defined in the three following clauses: “I wall up their rents” (pirtschen). The plural suffix can only be explained from the fact that sukkah actually refers to the kingdom of God, which was divided into two kingdoms (“these kingdoms,” ch. vi. 2), and that the house of Israel, which was not to be utterly destroyed (ver. 8), consisted of the remnant of the people of the two kingdoms, or the éxAoyy of the twelve tribes; so that in the expression jf's7p ‘n773 there is an allusion to the fact that the now divided nation would one day be united again under the one king David, as Hosea (ch. il. 2, ili. 5) and Ezekiel (ch. xxxvii. 22) distinctly prophesy. The correctness of this explanation of the plural suffix is confirmed by YD in the second clause, the suffix of which refers to David, aiader whom the destroyed kingdom would rise into new power. And whilst these two Be depict the restoration of the kingdom from its fallen condition, in the third clause its further preservation is foretold. 122 does not mean o “build” here, but to finish building, to carry on, enlarge, and beautify the building. The words noiy 0°3 (an abbreviated comparison for “as it was in the days of the olden time”) point back to the promise in 2 Sam. vii. 11, 12, 16, that God would build a house for David, would raise up his seed after him, and firmly establish his throne for ever, that his house and his kingdom should endure for ever before Him, upon which the whole of the promise before us is founded. The days of the rule of David and of his son Solomon are called “ days of eternity,” i.e. of the remotest past (compare Mic. vii. 14), to show that a long period would intervene between that time and the predicted restoration. The rule of David had already received a considerable blow through the falling away of the ten tribes. And it would fall still deeper in the future; but, according to the promise in 2 Sam. vii., it would not utterly perish, but would be raised up again from its fallen condition. It is not expressly stated that this will take place through a shoot from its own stem; but that is implied in the fact itself. The kingdom of David could only be raised up again through an offshoot from David’s family. And that this can be no other than the Messiah, was unanimously acknowledged by the earlier Jews, who even formed a name for the Messiah out of this passage, viz. DD] 13, jfilius cadentium, He who had sprung from a fallen hut (see the proofs in Hengstenberg’s Christology, vol. i. p. 886 transl.). The kingdom of David is set up in order that they (the sons of Israel, who have been proved to be corn by the sifting, ver. 9) may take possession of the remnant of Edom and all the nations, etc. The Edomites had been brought into subjection by David, who had taken possession of their land. At a late period, when the hut of David was beginning to fall, they had recovered their freedom again. This does not suffice, however, to explain the allusion to Edom here; for David had also brought the Philistines, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Aramzans into subjection to his sceptre,—all of them nations who had afterwards recovered their freedom, and to whom Amos foretels the coming judgment in ch.i. The reason why Edom alone is mentioned by name must be sought for, therefore, in the peculiar attitude which Edom assumed towards the people of God, namely, in the fact “that whilst they were related to the Judeans, they were of all nations the most hostile to them” (Rosenmiiller). On this very ground Obadiah predicted that judgment would come upon the Edomites, and that the remnant of Esau would be captured by the house of Jacob. Amos speaks here of the “remnant of Edom,” not because Amaziah recovered only a portion of Edom to the kingdom (2 Kings xiv. 7), as Hitzig supposes, but with an allusion to the threat in ch. i. 12, that Edom would be destroyed with the exception of a remnant. The “remnant of Edom” consists of those who are saved in the judgements that fall upon Edom. This also applies to pyian-9, Even of these nations, only those are taken by Israel, 7.¢. incorporated into the restored kingdom of David, the Messianic kingdom, upon whom the name of Jehovah is called; that is to say, not those who were first brought under the dominion of the nation in the time of David (Hitzig, Baur, and Hofmann), but those to whom He shall have revealed His divine nature, and manifested Himself as a God and Saviour (compare Isa. Ixiii, 19, Jer. xiv. 9, and the remarks on Deut. xxviii. 10), so that this expression is practically the same as N7p Tim Ws (whom Jehovah shall call). in Joel ii. 5. The perfect saps acquires the sense of the futurwn evactum from the leading sentence, as in Deut. xxviii. 10 (see Ewald, § 346, ¢). 2", to take possession of, is chosen with reference to the prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxiv. 18), that Edom should be the possession of Israel (see the comm. on this passage). Consequently the taking possession referred to here will be of a very different character from the subjugation of Edom and other nations to David. It will make the nations into citizens of the kingdom of God, to whom the Lord manifests Himself as their God, pouring upon them all the blessings of His covenant of grace (see Isa. lvi. 6-8). To strengthen this promise, ‘1) ~ DN3 (“saith Jehovah, that doeth this ”) is appended. He who says this is the Lord, who will also accomplish it (see Jer. xxxiii. 2).
The explanation given above is also in harmony with the use made by James of our prophecy in Acts xv. 16, 17, where he derives from vers. 11 and 12 a prophetic testimony to the fact that Gentiles who became believers were to be received into the kingdom of God without circumcision. It is true that at first sight James appears to quote the words of the prophet simply as a prophetic declaration in support of the fact related by Peter, namely, that by giving His Holy Spirit to believers from among the Gentiles as well as to believers from among the Jews, without making any distinction between Jews and Gentiles, God had taken out of the Gentiles a people ém 7o évopate avtod, “upon His name” (compare Acts xv. 14 with Acts xv. 8,9). But as both James and Peter recognise in this fact a practical declaration on the part of God that circumcision was not a necessary prerequisite to the reception of the Gentiles into the kingdom of Christ, while James follows up the allusion to this fact with the prophecy of Amos, introducing it with the words, “and to this agree the words of the prophets,” there can be no doubt that James also quotes the words of the prophet with the intention of adducing evidence out of the Old Testament in support of the reception of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God without circumcision. But this proof is not furnished by the statement of the prophet, “through its silence as to the condition required by those who were pharisaically disposed” (Hengstenberg); and still less by the fact that it declares in the most striking way “what significance there was in the typical kingdom of David, as a prophecy of the relation in which the human race, outside the limits of Israel, would stand to the kingdom of Christ” (Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, ii. 2, pp- 84,85). For the passage would contain nothing extraordinary concerning the typical significance possessed by the kingdom of David in relation to the kingdom of Christ, if, as Hofmann says (p. 84), the prophet, instead of enumerating all the nations which once belonged to the kingdom of David, simply mentions dom by name, and describes all the others as the nations which have been subject like Edom to the name of Jehovah. The demonstrative force of the prophet's statement is to be found, no doubt, as Hofmann admits, in the words 871p3 YN psinnnbs pay ‘oY, But if these words affirmed nothing more than what Hofmann finds in them—namely, that all the nations subdued by David were subjected to the name of Jehovah; or, as he says at p. 83, “ made up, in connection with Israel, the kingdom of Jehovah and His anointed, without being circumcised, or being obliged to obey the law of Israel”—their demonstrative force would simply lie in what they do not affirm,—namely, in the fact that they say nothing whatever about circumcision being a condition of the reception of the Gentiles. The circumstance that the heathen nations which David brought into subjection to his kingdom were made tributary to himself and subject to the name of Jehovah, might indeed be typical of the fact that the kingdom of the second David would also spread over the Gentiles; but, according to this explanation, it would affirm nothing at all as to the internal relation of the Gentiles to Israel in the new kingdom of God. The Apostle James, however, quotes the words of Amos as decisive on the point ia dispute, which the apostles were considering, because in the words, “ all the nations upon whom my name is called,” he finds a prediction of what Peter has just related,—namely, that the Lord has taken out of the heathen a people “ upon His name,” that is to say, because he understands by the calling of the name of the Lord upon the Gentiles the communication of the Holy Ghost to the Gentiles.’
To the setting up of the kingdom and its outward extension the prophet appends its inward glorification, foretelling the richest blessing of the land (ver. 13) and of the nation (ver. 14), and lastly, the eternal duration of the kingdom (ver. 15). Ver. 13. “ Behold, days come, is the saying of Jehovah, that the ploughman reaches to the reaper, and the treader of grapes to the sower of seed; and the mountains drip new wine, and all the hills melt away. Ver. 14. And I reverse the captivity of my people Israel, and they build the waste cities, and dwell, and plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; and make gardens, and eat the fruit thereof. Ver. 15. And I plant them in their land, and they shall no more be torn up out of their land which I have given them, saith Jehovah thy God.’ In the new kingdom of God the people of the Lord will enjoy the blessing, “which Moses promised to Israel when faithful to the covenant. This blessing will be poured upon the land in which the kingdom is set up. Ver. 18a is formed after the promise in Lev. xxvi. 5, “ Your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing-time;” but Amos transfers the action to the
1 Moreover, James (or Luke) quotes the words of Amos according to the LXX., even in their deviations from the Hebrew text, in the words ézwes ay snCnrgowow of zareroimo tay aévOparayv we (for which Luke has rép zUpiov, according to Cod. Al.), which rest upon an interchange of yd Dims TMNUAns wAY with DIN NNW wT yp; becanse the thought upon which it turned wag not thereby altered, inasmuch as the possession of the Gentiles, of which the prophet is speaking, is the spiritual sway of the people of the Lord, which can only extend over those who seek the Lord and His kingdom. The other deviations from the original text and from the LXX. (compare Acts xv. 16 with Amos ix. 11) may be explained on the ground that the apostle is quoting from memory, and that he alters év tn nuepe exsivy dveorgow into werd cadre civartpibo xoel avormoooyoo, to give greater clearness to the allusion contained in the prophecy to the Messianic times.
persons employed, and says, “ The ploughman will reach to the reaper.” Kyen while the one is engaged in ploughing the land for the sowing, the other will already be able to cut ripe corn; so quickly will the corn grow and ripen. And the treading of the grapes will last to the sowing-time, so abundant will the vintage be. The second half of the verse is taken from Joel iv. 18; and according to this passage, the melting of the hills is to be understood as dissolving into streams of milk, new wine, and honey, in which the prophet had the description of the promised land as a land flowing with milk and honey (Ex. iii. 8, etc.) floating before his mind. In the land so blessed will Israel enjoy unbroken peace, and delight itself in the fruits of its inheritance. On Maw-ns 3, see the exposition of Hos. vi.11. That this phrase is not used here to denote the return of the people from captivity, but the turning of misfortune and misery into prosperity and salvation, is evident from the context; for Israel cannot be brought back out of captivity after it has already taken possession of the Gentiles (ver. 12). The thought of ver. 14, as attached to ver. 18, is the following: As the land of Israel, i.e. the territory of the re-erected kingdom of David, will no more be smitten with the curse of drought and failing crops with which the rebellious are threatened, but will receive the blessing of the greatest fertility, so will the people, z.e. the citizens of this kingdom, be no more visited with calamity and judgment, but enjoy the rich beneficent fruits of their labour in blessed and unbroken peace. This thought is individualized with a retrospective glance at the punishment with which the sinners are threatened in ch. v. 11, —namely, as building waste cities, and dwelling therein, and as drinking the wine of the vineyards that have been planted; not building houses for others any more, as was threatened in ch. v. 11, after Deut. xxviii. 30, 39; and lastly, as laying out gardens, and eating the fruit thereof, without its being consumed by strangers (Deut. xxviii. 33). This blessing will endure for ever (ver. 15). Their being planted in their land denotes, not the settling of the people in their land once more, but their firm and lasting establishment and fortification therein. The Lord will make Israel, z.¢. His rescued people, into a plantation that will never be torn up again, but strikes firm roots, sends forth blossom, and produces fruit. The words point back to 2 Sam. vii. 10, and declare that the firm planting of Israel which was begun by David will be completed with the raising up of the fallen hut of David, inasmuch as no further driving away of the nation into captivity will occur, but the people of the Lord will dwell for ever in the land which their God has given them. Compare Jer. xxiv. 6. This promise is sealed by oe TWN, We have not to seek for the realization of this promise in the return of Israel from its captivity to Palestine under Zerubbabel and Ezra; for this was no planting of Israel to dwell for ever in the land, nor was it a setting up of the fallen hut of David. Nor have we to transfer the fulfilment to the future, and think of a time when the Jews, who have been converted to their God and Saviour Jesus Christ, will one day be led back to Palestine. For, as we have already observed at Joel iii. 18, Canaan and Israel are types of the kingdom of God and of the church of the Lord. The raising up of the fallen hut of David commenced with the coming of Christ and the founding of the Christian church by the apostles; and the possession of Edom and all the other nations upon whom the Lord reveals His name, took its rise in the reception of the Gentiles into the kingdom of heaven set up by Christ. The founding and building of this kingdom continue through all the ages of the Christian church, and will be completed when the fulness of the Gentiles shall one day enter into the kingdom of God, and the still unbelieving Israel shall have been converted to Christ. The land which will flow with streams of divine blessing is not Palestine, but the domain of the Christian church, or the earth, so far as it has received the blessings of Christianity. The people which cultivates this land is the Christian church, so far as it stands in living faith, and produces fruits of the Holy Ghost. The blessing foretold by the prophet is indeed visible at present in only a very small measure, because Christendom is not yet so pervaded by the Spirit of the Lord, as that it forms a holy people of God. In many respects it still resembles Israel, which the Lord will have to sift by means of judgments. This sifting will be first brought to an end through the judgment upon all nations, which will attend the second coming of Christ. Then will the earth become a Canaan, where the Lord will dwell in His glorified kingdom in the midst of His sanctified people.
WS to the person and cirewmstances of Obadiah, nothing | certain is known, since the heading to his prophecy simply contains the name M739, i.e. servant, worshipper of Jehovah ’O6x00 al. ’ A BStol, sé. 6pacus, LXX.), and does not even mention his father’s name. The name Obadiah frequently occurs in its earlier form ‘Obadydhi. This was the name of a pious governor of the palace under king Ahab (1 Kings xviii. 3 sqq.), of a prince of Judah under Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xvii. 7), of a brave Gadite under David (1 Chron. xii. 9), of a Benjamite (1 Chron. viii. 38), of an Issacharite (1 Chron. vii. 3), of a Zebulunite (1 Chron. xxvii. 19), of several Levites (1 Chron. ix. 16, 44; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 12), and of different men ‘after the captivity (1 Chron. iii. 21;
Ezra viii. 9; Neh. x. 6). The traditional accounts of our prophet in the rabbins and fathers, some of whom identify him with Ahab’s pious commander of the castle, others with the third captain sent by Ahaziah against Elisha (2 Kings i. 13), whilst others again make him an Edomitish proselyte (see Carpzov, Introd. p. 832 sqq., and Delitzsch, de Habacuci vita atque etate, pp. 60, 61), are quite worthless, and evidently false, and have merely originated in the desire to know something more about him than the simple name (see C. P. Caspari, Der Proph. Ob. pp. 2, 3).
The writing of Obadiah contains but one single prophecy concerning the relation in which Edom stood to the people of God. It commences with the proclamation of the destruction with which the Lord has determined to visit the Edomites, who rely upon the impregnability of their rocky seat (vers. 1-9); and then depicts, as the cause of the divine judgment which will thus suddenly burst upon the haughty people, the evil which it did to Jacob, the covenant nation, when Judah and Jerusalem had been taken by heathen nations, who not only plundered them, but shamefully desecrated the mountain of Zion (vers. 10-14). For this the Edomites and all nations will receive retribution, even to their utter destruction in the approaching day of the Lord (vers. 15, 16). But upon Mount Zion there will be delivered ones, and the mountain will be holy. The house of Jacob will take possession of the settlement of the Gentiles, and, in common with Israel, will destroy the Edomites, and extend its territory on all sides (vers. 17-19). That portion of the nation which has been scattered about in heathen lands will return to their enlarged fatherland (ver. 20). Upon Mount Zion will saviours arise to judge Edom, and the kingdom will then be the Lord’s (ver. 21). This brief statemeut of the contents is sufficient to show that Obadiah’s prophecy does not consist of a mere word of threatening directed against Edom, or treat of so special a theme as that his chdzon could be compared to Ahijah’s n‘bhwah, and Yehdi’s (Iddo’s) chézoth against Jeroboam 1. (2 Chron. ix. 29); but that Obadiah takes the general attitude of Edom towards the people of Jehovah as the groundwork of his prophecy, regards the judgment upon Edom as one feature in the universal judgment upon all nations (cf. vers. 15, 16), proclaims in the destruction of the power of Edom the overthrow of the power of all nations hostile to God, and in the final elevation and reestablishment of Israel in the holy land foretels the completion of the sovereignty of Jehovah, 7.2. of the kingdom of God, as dominion over all nations; so that we may say with Hengstenberg, that “ Obadiah makes the judgment upon the Gentiles and the restoration of Israel the leading object of his prophetic painting.” Through this universal standpoint, from which Edom is taken as a representative of the ungodly power of the world, Obadiah rises far above the utterances of the earlier prophets contained in the historical books of the Old Testament, and stands on a level with the prophets, who composed prophetic writings of their own for posterity, as well as for their own age; so that, notwithstanding the small space occupied by his prophecy, it has very properly had a place assigned it in the prophetic literature. At the same time, we cannot agree with
Hengstenberg, who gives the following interpretation to this view of the attitude of Edom towards the people of God, namely, that Obadiah simply adduces Edom as an example of what he has to say with regard to the heathen world, with its enmity against God, and as to the form which the relation between Israel and the heathen world would eventually assume, and therefore that his prophecy simply individualizes the thought of the universal dominion of the kingdom of God which would follow the deepest degradation of the people of God, the fullest and truest realization of which dominion is to be sought for in Christ, and that the germ of his prophecy is contained in Joel iii. 19, where Edom is introduced as an individualized example and type of the heathen world with its hostility to God, which is to be judged by the Lord after the judgment upon Judah. For, apart from the fact that Obadiah does not presuppose Joel, but vice versa, as we shall presently see, this mode of idealizing our prophecy cannot be reconciled with its concrete character and expression, or raised into a truth by any analogies in prophetic literature. All the prophecies are occasioned by distinct concrete relations and circumstances belonging to the age from which they spring. And even those which are occupied with the remote and remotest future, like Isa. xl.-Ixvi. for example, form no real exception to this rule. Joel would not have mentioned Edom as the representation of the heathen world with its hostility to God (ii. 19), and Obadiah would not have predicted the destruction of Edom, if the Edomites had not displayed their implacable hatred to the people of God on one particular occasion in the most conspicuous manner. It is only in this way that we can understand the contents of the whole of Obadiah’s prophecy, more especially the relation in which the third section (vers. 17-21) stands to the first two, and explain them without force.
The time of the prophet is so much a matter of dispute, that some regard him as the oldest of the twelve minor prophets, whilst others place him in the time of the captivity, and Hitzig even assigns him to the year 312 B.c., when prophecy had long been extinct. (For the different views, see my Lehrbuch der Hinleitung, § 88.) That Obadiah does not belong to the prophets of the captivity, or to those after the captivity, but to the earlier prophets, may be generally inferred from the position of his book in the collection of the twelve minor prophets; for although the collection is not strictly chronological, yet it is so arranged as a whole, that the writings of the captivity and the times after the captivity occupy the last places, whereas Obadiah stands among older prophets. More precise information may be obtained from the contents of his prophecy, more especially from the relation in which it stands on the one hand to the prophecy of Jeremiah (xlix. 7-22) concerning Edom, and on the other hand to the prophecy of Joel. Obadiah so thoroughly coincides with these in a number of characteristic thoughts and expressions, that the one must have known the other. If we examine, first of all, the relation which exists between Obadiah and Jeremiah (J.c.), there can be no doubt, (and since the thorough investigations of Caspari (p. 5 sqq.) it has been admitted by every one with the exception of Hitzig,) that Obadiah did not use Jeremiah, but that Jeremiah read and made use of Obadiah. This se indeed be conjectured from the peculiar characteristic of Jeremiah, namely, that he leans throughout upon the utterances of the earlier prophets, and reproduces their thoughts, figures, and words (see A. Kueper, Jeremias librorum ss. interpres atque vindex, 1837). Thus, for example, nearly all his prophecies against foreign nations are founded upon utterances of the earlier prophets: that against the Philistines (Jer. xlvii.) upon Isaiah’s prophecy against that people (Isa. xiv. 28-82); that against the Moabites (Jer. xlviil.) upon that of Isaiah in ch. xv. xvi.; that against the Ammonites (Jer. xlix. 1-6) upon the prophecy of Amos against the same (Amos i. 13-15); that against Damascus (Jer. xlix. 23-27) upon that of Amos against this kingdom (Amos i. 3-5); and lastly, that against Babylon (Jer. 1. li.) upon the prophecy of Isaiah against Babylon in Isa. xil.—xiv. 23, To this we may add, (1) that the prophecy of Jeremiah against Edom contains a number of expressions peculiar to himself and characteristic of his style, not a single one of which is to be found in Obadiah, whilst nothing is met with elsewhere in Jeremiah of that which is common to Obadiah and him (for the proofs of this, see Caspari, pp. 7, 8); and (2) that what is common to the two prophets not only forms an outwardly connected passage in Obadiah, whereas in Jeremiah it occurs in several unconnected passages of his prophecy (compare Obad. 1-8 with Jer. xlix. 7, 9, 10, 14-16), but, as the exposition will show, that in Obadiah it is more closely connected and apparently more original than in Jeremiah. But if it be a fact, as this unquestionably proves, that Obadiah’s prophecy is more original, and therefore older, than that of Jeremiah, Obadiah cannot have prophesied after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, but must have prophesied before it, since Jeremiah’s prophecy against Edom belongs to the fourth year of Jehoiakim (see Caspari, p. 14 sqq., and Graf’s Jeremias, pp. 558-9, compared with p. 506). The central section of Obadiah’s prophecy (vers. 10-16) does not appear to harmonize with this result, inasmuch as the cause of the judgment with which the Edomites are threatened in vers. 1-9 is said to be their rejoicing over Judah and Jerusalem at the time of their calamity, when foreigners entered into his gates, and cast the lot upon Jerusalem; and they are charged not only with looking upon the destruction of the brother nation with contemptuous pleasure, but with taking part themselves in the plundering of Judah, and murdering the fugitives, or giving them up to their enemies. These reproaches unquestionably presuppose a conquest of Jerusalem by foreign nations; but whether it is the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, is by no means so certain as many commentators imagine. It is true that Caspari observes (p. 18), that “every one who reads these verses would naturally suppose that they refer to that catastrophe, and to the hostilities shown by the Edomites to the Judeans on that occasion, to which those prophets who lived after the destruction of Jerusalem, viz. Jeremiah (Lam. iv. 21, 22), Ezekiel (ch. xxxv.), and the author of Ps. cxxxvii., refer to some extent in almost the same words in which Obadiah speaks of them.” But of the passages cited, Lam. iv. 21, 22 cannot be taken into account at all, since it simply contains the thought that the cup (of affliction) will also reach to the daughter of Edom; and that she will be intoxicated and stripped, and that Jehovah will punish her guilt. The other two are no doubt similar. The Psalmist in Ps. cxxxvii. utters this prayer in ver. 7: “ Remember, Jehovah, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who say, Strip, strip (2.¢. demolish) even to the foundation thereof;” and Ezekiel threatens Edom with everlasting desolation, because it has cherished everlasting enmity, and given up the sons of Israel to the sword, }’? ny nya DTS nya Ger 5), because it has said, The two nations (J udah and Isracl) shall be mine, we will oS possession of them (ver. 10); because it has cherished hatred toward the sons of Israel, and spoken blasphemy against the mountains of Israel, and said they are laid waste, they are given to us for food (ver. 12); because it has taken pleasure in the desolation of the inheritance of the house of Israel (ver. 15). There is a most unambiguous allusion here to the desolating of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem, and to the hostilities which the Edomites displayed when this calamity fell upon Judah. On the other hand, Obadiah does not hint at the destruction of Jerusalem in a single word. He neither speaks of the everlasting enmity of Edom, nor of the fact that it wanted to get possession of Judah and Israel for itself, but simply of the hostile behaviour of the Edomites towards the brother nation Judah, when enemies forced their way into Jerusalem and plundered its treasures, and the sons of Judah perished. Consequently Obadiah has before his eyes simply the conquest and plundering of Jerusalem by foreign, z.e. heathen foes, but not the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. Even Caspari is obliged to admit, that there is no necessity to understand most (or more correctly “ any”) of the separate expressions of Obadiah as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans; but, in his opinion, this allusion is required by “what is said in vers. 11-14 when taken all together, inasmuch as the prophet there describes the day of Jerusalem by the strongest possible names, following one upon another, as the day of his people’s rejection, the day of their distress (twice), and the day of their calamity (three times).” But even this we cannot regard as well established, since neither 33 O1 nor it Di designates the calamitous day as a day of rejection; and na" OF cannot possibly denote the utter destruction of all the Judeans, but simply affirms that the sons of Judah perished en masse. The other epithets, 133, 78, 78, do not enable us to define more precisely the nature of the calamity which befel Judah at that time; and the crowding together of these expressions simply shows that the calamity was a very great one, and not that Jerusalem was destroyed and the kingdom of Judah dissolved.
But before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, it was several times taken and plundered by foes: viz. (1) by Shishak king of Egypt in the fifth year of Rehoboam (1 Kings xiv. 25, 26; 2 Chron. sii. 2 sqq.); (2) by the Philistines ona Arabians in the time of Jehoram (2 Chron. xxi. 16,17); (3) by the Israelitish king Joash in the reign of Amaziah (2 Kings xiv. 18, 14; 2 Chron. xxv. 23, 24); (4) by the Chaldeans in the time of Jehoiakim (2 Kings xxiv. 1 sqq.; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6, 7); and (5) by the Chaldeans again in the reign of Jehoiachin (2 Kings xxiv. 10 sqq.; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10). Of these different conquests, the first can have no bearing upon the question before us, inasmuch as in the time of Rehoboam the Edomites were subject to the kingdom of Judah, and therefore could not have attempted to do what Obadiah says they did; nor can the two Babylonian conquests under Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, inasmuch as, according to the relation in which Obadiah stood to Jeremiah, as shown above, he must have prophesied before they occurred; nor can the conquest in the reign of Amaziah, because Obadiah describes the enemies as zartm and nokhrim (strangers and foreigners), which clearly points to Gentile nations (compare Joel ii.17; Lam. v. 2; Deut. xvii. 15), and does not apply to the citizens of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Consequently there only remains the taking of Jerusalem by the Philistines and Arabians in the time of Jehoram; and the relation in which Obadiah stood to Joel clearly points to this.
There is so remarkable a coincidence between vers. 10-18 of Obadiah and ch. ii. 32 and ch. ili. of Joel, in a very large number of words, expressions, and thoughts, considering the smallness of the two passages, and especially of that of Obadiah, that the dependence of one upon the other must be universally acknowledged.’ But this dependence is not to be sought for on the side of Obadiah, as Caspari and others suppose; for the fact that Joel bears the stamp of originality in a greater degree than any other prophet, and the circumstance
1 Compare apy Ps pIOnd in Ob. 10 with ann 2 DION in Joel that we meet with references to him in not a few of the later prophets from Amos onwards, furnish no evidence that will bear a moment’s test. “The originality of Joel,” as Delitasch
observes, “is no disproof of his dependence; for, on the one hand, the reproduction of certain elements from Obadiah’s prophecy does not in the least invalidate his originality, inasmuch as the reproduction is itself original; and, on the other hand, not one of the prophets with whom we are acquainted (not even Isaiah) is so original as that the prophecies of his predecessors are not echoed by him, just as Obadiah, even if he were original in relation to Joel, had the prophecies of Balaam as his original, and imitates them in several passages (compare Num. xxiv. 21, 18,19 with Ob. 4, 18, 19).” But
the fact that Joel rests upon Obadiah is proved in the most decisive manner by the expression in Joel ii. 32, “as the Lord hath said,” where the foregoing thought, which is common both to Joel and Obadiah, viz. “in Mount Zion... shall be ph*letah” (see Ob. 17), is described as a well-known word of the Lord. Now Joel can only have taken this from Obadiah, for it occurs nowhere else; and the idea suggested by Ewald, that it is derived from an older oracle that has been lost, would only be feasible if the later date of Obadiah, or his sapenaeae upon Joel, could be demonstrated by conclusive arguments, which is not the case.
A correct determination of the relation in which Obadiah stood to Joel, especially if we compare the prophecies of Amos, who also alludes to Joel (compare Joel ili. 16 with Amos i. 2, and Joel iii. 18 with Amos ix. 13), leads with the greatest probability to the conclusion that Obadiah reproaches the Edomites with the hostility which they displayed when Judah and Jerusalem were plundered by the Philistines and Arabians in the time of Jehoram. In the reign of Jehoram the Edomites threw off the Judeean supremacy (compare 2 Kings viii. 20- 22, and 2 Chron. xxi. 8-10); and in connection with this rebellion, they appear to have planned a great massacre upon nan DST pavir) and DavNa poor DUN in Joel iii. 4, 7; pity 12 nats min” and yap mem in Ob. 17 with “nba mt nnn povawa fay"n3 3 the Judzans, who were in their land at the time (compare Joel iii, 19 with Amos i. 11). Libnah also fell away from Judah at the same time (2 Kings viii. 22; 2 Chron. xxi. 10), and Philistines and Arabians penetrated victoriously into Judah. This expedition of the Philistines and (Petreean) Arabians against Jerusalem was not merely “a passing raid on the part of certain of the neighbouring nations who had been made tributary by Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xvii. 11), and had rebelled in the time of Jehoram,” as Caspari says; but these hordes continued their ravages in the most cruel manner in Judah and Jerusalem. According to 2 Chron. xxi. 17, they burst into the land, forced their way into Jerusalem, plundered the royal palace, and carried away the children and wives of the king, so that only the youngest son, Jehoahaz or Ahaziah, was left behind. We also learn from Joel iii. 5 that they took away gold, silver, and jewels from the temple; and from Joel il. 8, 6, that they carried on the vilest trade with the men and women of Judah, and sold the captives to the Greeks, and that, as we see from Amos i. 6, 9, through the medium of the Pheenicians and Edomites. This agrees perfectly with Ob. 10-14. For, according to this passage also, the Edomites themselves were not the enemies who conquered Jerusalem and plundered its treasures, but simply accomplices, who rejoiced in the doings of the enemy (vers. 11 sqq.), held carousals with them upon the holy mountain Zion (ver. 16), and sought, partly by rapine and partly by slaying or capturing the fugitive Judeans (ver. 14), to get as much gain as possible out of Judah’s misfortune. We must therefore regard this event, as Hofmann and Delitzsch have done, as the occasion of Obadiah’s prophecy, and that all the more, because the historical allusions which it contains can thereby be satisfactorily explained; whereas the other attempts at solving the difficulties, when we look at the thing more closely, prove to be either altogether untenable, or such as will not apply throughout. Thus, for example, Ewald and Graf (on Jer. xlix. 7 sqq.) have endeavoured to reconcile the fact that Jeremiah had read the first part of Obadiah as early as the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and had made use of it in his prophecy, with the opinion that vers. 10-16 (Ob.) refer to the Chaldean conquest and destruction of Jerusalem, by the hypothesis that the first part of Obadiah, as we possess it, was founded upon an earlier prophecy, which was adopted by the later editor of our book, and incorporated in his writings, and which had also been made use of by Jeremiah. In support of this hypothesis, the circumstance has been adduced, that Jeremiah’s references to Obadiah only extend to ver. 9, that the introductory words in Obadiah, “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah concerning Edom,” do not stand in a close connection with what follows immediately after and thus appear to have been added at a later period, and that the rare word tiphlatst*khad (Jer. xlix. 16), which is not met with anywhere else in Jeremiah, is wanting in Obadiah. But the first phenomenon may be explained very simply, from the fact that the remaining portion of Obadiah (vers. 10-21) furnished nothing which Jeremiah could make use of for his object, and that we have an analogy in the relation between Jer. xlviil. and Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Moab (Isa. xv. xvi.), where in just the same manner certain portions, viz. Isa. xvi. 1-5, have not been made use of at all. Again, the want of any closer logical connection between the introduction, “Thus hath the Lord said with regard to Edom,” and what follows, “ We have heard a rumour from Jehovah,” arises from the circumstance that these introductory words do not apply exclusively’ to what follows immediately after, but belong to the whole of Obadiah’s prophecy (see at ver. 1). Moreover, these words could not have been wanting even in the supposed earlier or original prophecy, inasmuch as what follows would be unintelligible without them, since the name Hdom, to which the suffixes and addresses in vers. lc-5 apply, would be altogether wanting. And lastly, the word tiphlatst‘khd, which is otherwise strange to Jeremiah, proves nothing in favour of an earlier source, which both Obadiah and Jeremiah employed; nor can we see any sufficient reason for its omission when the earlier oracle was adopted. The other arguments adduced in support of this hypothesis are entirely without significance, if not absolutely erroneous. The fact that from ver. 10 onwards, where Jeremiah ceases to make use of our prophecy, the connection between Obadiah and Joel commences, of which there is not the slightest trace in vers. 1-9, has its natural foundation in the contents of the two parts of Obadiah. The announcement of the judgment upon the Edomites in Ob. 1-9 could not be made use of by Joel, because, with the exception of the casual allusion in ch, iii. 19, he does not treat of the judgment upon Edom at all. The contents of Ob. 1-9 also show the reason why no allusion whatever is made in these verses to Israel and Jerusalem. The judgment predicted here was not to be executed by either Israel or Judah, but by the nations. Graf's assertion, that ver. 7 contains an allusion to totally different circumstances from those referred to in vers. 10 sqq., as the verses mentioned relate to altogether disproportionate things, is decidedly incorrect. So also is Ewald’s opinion, that half our present Obadiah, viz. vers. 1-10, and vers. 17a and 18, “clearly points to an earlier prophet in contents, language, and colour.” Caspari has already replied to this as follows: “ We confess, on the contrary, that we can discover no difference in colour and language between vers. 1-9 and 10-21. The latter has its &ra& Neyoueva and its rare words just like the former (compare yop “an ver. 3, 22 ver. 6, Y2B¥D ver. 6, TD ver. 7, PLP ver. 9, in the first paragraph; and 433 ver. 12, nonewin ver. 13, PIB ver. 14, wd ver. 16, in the second); and precisely the same liveliness and boldness which distinguished the first part of the prophecy, prevail in the second also. Not a single later word, nor a single form of more recent date, is met with to indicate the later origin of the second part.” Moreover, it is impossible to discover any well-established analogy in the prophetical writings of the Old Testament to support this hypothesis.
The attempt made by Caspari, Hengstenberg, and others, to reconcile the opinion, that Obadiah alludes in vers. 11 sqq. to the Chaldean destruction of Jerusalem, with the fact that Jeremiah has made use of our book of ‘Obadiah: in his prophecy against Edom, which was uttered in the reigu of Jehoiakim, by the assumption that Obadiah is not describing something that has already happened, but giving a prophetic picture of the future, is wrecked on the wording of the verses in question. When Obadiah threatens Edom with shame and destruction on account of its wickedness towards its brother Jacob (ver. 10), and then describes this wickedness in preterites—“ On the day of thy standing opposite when strangers had come into his gates and cast the lot upon Jerusalem” (ver. 11); and, “ As ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so will all the heathen drink,” ete. (ver. 16)—no one would understand these preterites as used prophetically, ze. as referring to what was not to take place till a far distant future, except on the most conclusive grounds. Such grounds, however, some imagine that they can find in vers. 12-14, where the prophet warns the Edomites not to rejoice over their brother nation’s day of calamity, or take part in the destruction of Judah. Hengstenberg and Caspari follow Theodoret, Michaelis, and others, in the opinion that Obadiah is predicting the destruction of Jerusalem, and that ver. 11 can only be interpreted prophetically, and cannot be taken as referring to an ideal past. For, as Caspari adds
(p. 29), “I might very well be able to warn a person against an act, even though he were just about to perform it, and I were perfectly certain that he would perform it notwithstanding, and my warning would be fruitless, and though I merely warned him, that he might not perform it without warning; but to warn a person against an act which he has already performed would be a most marvellous thing, even though the warning were only given in the spirit and with the deed standing out as a present thing.” No doubt it is perfectly true that “such
a warning after the deed was done would be quite out of place,” if it had reference merely to one isolated act, a repetition of which was not to be expected. But if the act already performed was but one single outbreak of a prevailing disposition, and might be repeated on every fresh occasion, and possibly had already shown itself more than once, a warning against such an act could neither be regarded as out of place, nor as particularly striking, even after the thing had been done. The warnings in vers. 12-14, therefore, do not compel us to interpret the preterites in vers. 11 and 16 prophetically, as relating to some future deed. Moreover, “the repeated warnings against so wicked a deed were simply the drapery in which the prophet clothed the prediction of the certain coming of the day of Jehovah, which would put an end to the manifestation of such a disposition on the part of Edom” (Delitzsch). There is still less ground for the further remark of Caspari, that the allusions to Joel i Obadiah’s description of the day of calamity (not “of the destruction”) of Jerusalem, unquestionably preclude the supposition that he was an eye-witness of that event, and require the hypothesis that he wrote either before or a long time afterwards. or these allusions are not of such a nature that Obadiah simply repeats and still further develops what Joel had already prophesied before him, but, on the contrary, of such a nature that Joel had Obadiah before his mind, and has expanded certain features of his prophecy still further in ch. ii. 83-6. The description of the hostilities of the Edomites towards Israel, Obadiah could not possibly take from either Joel, or Amos ix. 12, or the sayings of Balaam in Num. xxiv. 18, 19, as Caspari supposes; because neither of these prophets has depicted them any more fully, but can only have drawn it from his own experience, and from what he himself had seen, so that his prophecy is thereby proved to be the original, as compared with that of Joel and Amos.
All this leads to the conclusion, that we must regard Obadiah as older than Joel, and fix upon the reign of Joram as the date of his ministry, but without thereby giving him “an isolated position;” for, according to the most correct chronological arrangement of their respective dates, Joel prophesied at the most twenty years after him, and Hosea and Amos commenced their labours only about seventy-five years later. The calamitous event which burst upon Judah and Jerusalem, and gave occasion for Obadiah’s prophecy, took place in the latter part of Joram’s eight years’ reign. Consequently Obadiah cannot have uttered his prophecy, and committed it to writing, very long before Jehoram’s death. At the same time, it cannot have been at a later period; because, on the one hand, it produces the unquestionable impression, that the hostilities practised by the Edomites were still kept in the most lively remembrance; and on the other hand, it contains no hint of that idolatrous worship to which the ruthless Athaliah endeavoured to give the pre-eminence in Judah, after the one year’s reign of Ahaziah, who succeeded Joram. For the commentaries on Obadiah, see my Lehrbuch der Einleitung,
The prophecy of Obadiah, which is headed the chézon, visio (see at Isa. i. 1), is divisible into three sections: vers. 1-9, 10-16, and 17-21. In the first section the prophet proclaims—
Epom’s Run, setting forth, in the first place, the purpose of God to make Edom small through the medium of hostile nations, and to hurl it down from the impregnable heights of its rocky castles (vers. 1-4); and then depicting, in lively colours, how it will be plundered by enemies, forsaken and deceived by allies and friends, and perish in helplessness and impotence (vers. 5-9). Ver. 1 contains, in addition to the brief heading, the introduction to the. prophecy, which gives in a brief form the substance of the first section: “ Thus hath the Lord Schovah spoken of Edom, A report have we heard from does not harmonize with what follows, inasmuch as we should expect it to be followed with a declaration made by Jehovah Himself, instead of which there follow simply tidings heard from Jehovah. The difficulty cannot be removed by assuming that these introductory words are spurious, or were added by a later prophet (Kichhorn, Ewald, and others); for the interpo- sqq. Nor is the assumption that the prophet suddenly altered the construction any more satisfactory, or that the declaration of Jehovah announced in 3) 128 73 (“thus saith the Lord”) commences in ver. 2, and that the words from 73"¥ to the end of the verse form an explanatory parenthesis to ‘) 128 73, For such an alteration of the construction at the very be- ginning of the address is hardly conceivable; and the parenthetical explanation of the last three clauses of ver. 1 is at variance with their contents, which do not form by any means a subordinate thought, but rather the main thought of the following address. No other course remains, therefore, than to take these introductory words by themselves, as Michaelis, Maurer, and Caspari have done, in which case “x n> does not announce the actual words of Jehovah in the stricter sense, but is simply meant to affirm that the prophet uttered what follows jussu Jehove, or divinitus monitus, so that vox n> is really equivalent to 727 Wk 7297 At in Isa. xvi. 18, as Theodoret has explained it. DITND, not “to Edom,” but with reference to, or of, Edom. On the occurrence of Y*hovdh after ’Adondi, see the comm. on Gen. ii. 4. What Obadiah saw as a word of the Lord was the tidings heard from the Lord, and the divine message sent to the nations to rise up for war against Edom. The plural yw (we have heard) is communicative. The prophet includes himself in the nation (Israel), which has heard the tidings in him and through him. This implies that the tidings were of the greatest interest to Israel, and would afford it consolation. Jeremiah (xlix. 14) has removed the pregnant character of the expression, by introducing the singular ‘nyow (I have heard). The next clause, “ and an ambassador,” etc., might be taken, as it has been by Luther, as a statement of the import of the news, namely, that a messenger had been sent; inasmuch as in Hebrew a sentence is frequently co-ordinated with the preceding one by Vav cop., when it ought really to be subordinated to it so far as the sense is concerned, from a simple preference for the parallelism of the clauses. But the address gains in force, if we take the clause as a co-ordinate one, just as it reads, viz. as a declaration of the steps already taken by the Lord for carrying out the resolution which had been heard of by report. In this case the substance of the report is not given till the last clause of the verse; the summons of the ambassador sent among the nations, “to rise up for war against Edom,” indicating at the same time the substance of the report which Israel has heard. The perfect shulldch with gdmets in the pause, which is changed by Jeremiah into the less appropriate passive participle kal, corresponds to yay, and expresses in prophetic form the certainty of the accomplishment of the purpose of God. The sending of the messenger (ésir as in Isa. xvill. 2) among the nations (3 as in Judg. vi. 35) is an assurance that the nations will rise up at the instigation of Jehovah to war against Edom (compare Isa. xiii..17; Jer. li. 1, 11). The plural ndgumah (let us rise up), in the words of the messenger, may be explained on the simple ground that the messenger speaks in the name of the sender. The sender is Jehovah, who will also rise up along with the nations for war against Edom, placing Himself at their head as leader and commander (compare Joel ii. 11; Isa. xiii. 4, 5). my, against Edom, construed as a Jand or kingdom, gener. fem. ‘The fact that it is the nations generally that are here summoned to make war upon Edom, and not any one nation in particular, points at once to the fact that Edom is regarded as a type of the power of the world, and its hostility to God, the destruction of which is here foretold.
Vers. 2-4. The Lord threatens Edom with war, because He has determined to reduce and humble the nation, which now, with its proud confidence in its lofty rocky towers, regards itself as invincible. Ver. 2. “ Behold, I have made thee small among the nations; thou art greatly despised. Ver. 3. The pride of thy heart hath deceived thee; thou that dwellest in rocky castles, upon tts lofty seat; that saith in tts heart, Who will cast me down to the ground? Ver. 4. If thou buildest high like the eagle, and af thy nest were placed among stars, thence will I cast thee down, is the saying of Jehovah.” Ver. 2 is correctly attached in Jeremiah (ver. 15) by "5, inasmuch as it contains the reason for the attack upon Edom. By hinnéh (behold), which points to the fact itself, the humiliation of Edom is vividly presented to the mind. The perfect ndthatti “ describes the resolution of Jehovah as one whose fulfilment is as certain as if it had already occurred” (Caspari). What Jehovah says really takes place. {8P refers to the number of the people. The participle ‘2 is perfectly appropriate, as expressing the ideal present, 2.¢. the present which follows the 7M} jp. When the Lord has made Edom small, it will be very much despised. It is only through an incorrect interpretation of the historical present that Hitzig could possibly be led to regard the participle as unsuitable, and to give the preference to Jeremiah’s OF82 “1a, Ver. 3 contains a consequence which follows from ver. 2. Edom will be unable to avert this fate: its lofty rocky castles will not preserve it from the overthrow which has been decreed by the Lord, and which He will carry out through the medium of the nations. Edom has therefore been deceiv = by its proud reliance upon these rocky towers. ‘23%, with the connecting sound »° attached to the construct state Gen at Gen. xxxi. 39), i is a vocative. yop ‘37 are rocky towers, though the primary meaning of 37 is open to dispute. The word is derived from the root mM, which is not used in Hebrew (like \¥?P from 73>), and is found not only here and in the parallel passage of Jeremiah, but also in the Song of Sol. ii. 14, where it occurs in parallelism with 1nD, which points to the meaning refugium, ¢.e. asylum. This meaning has also been confirmed by A. Schultens (Animadv. ad Jes. xix. 17) and by Michaelis (Thes. s.v. Jes.), from = Sr Gr tea the Arabic lsis, confugit, and \aiste, refugium.' In the expression imay DID the 2 is to be considered as still retaining its force from 43m onwards (ef. Isanxxvitta Tie obixv.3, ete). The emphasis rests upon high; and hence the abstract noun mdrom, height, instead of the adjective. The Edomites inhabited the mountains of Seir, which have not yet been carefully explored in detail. They are on the eastern side of the Ghor (or Arabah), stretching from the deep rocky valley of the Ahsy, which opens into the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, and extending as far as la on the Red Sea, and consist of mighty rocks of granite and porphyry, covered with fresh vegetation, which terminate in the west, towards the deeply intersected sand-sea of the Ghor and Avababs in steep and lofty walls of sandstone. ‘The mountains are hardly accessible, therefore, on the western side; whereas on the east they
1 The renderings adopted on the authority of the ancient versions, such as clefts of the rock, scissure, jagged rocks, fissures (67«/, LXX.), caves, which are derived either from the supposed connection between myn and npn, and the Arabic.18, jidit, laceravit, ov from the Arabic eae S&S antrum (with the letters transposed), have far less to sustain them. For the meanings assigned to these Arabic words are not the primary meanings, but derivative ones. The former signifies literally propulit, the latter ry AEA confugit, iv. effecit ut ad rem confugeret; and Cus means refugium, asylum. VOL. I. Z are gradually lost in the broad sandy desert of Arabia, without any perceptible fall (see Burckhardt in v. Raumer’s Pal. pp. 83-4, 86; and Robinson’s Palestine, ii. p. 551 sqq.). They also abound in clefts, with both natural and artificial caves; and hence its earliest inhabitants were Horites, 7.e. dwellers in caves; and even the Edomites dwelt in caves, at least to some extent! The capital, Sela (Petra), in the Wady Musa, of whose glory at one time there are proofs still to be found in innumerable remains of tombs, temples, and other buildings, was shut in both upon the east and west by rocky walls, which present an endless variety of bright lively colours, from the deepest crimson to the softest pale red, and sometimes passing into orange and yellow; whilst on the north and south it was so encireled by hills and heights, that it could only be reached by climbing through very difficult mountain passes and defiles (see Burckhardt, Syr. p. 703; Robinson, Pal. i. p. 573; and Ritter, Hrdk. xiv. p. 1103); and Pliny calls it oppidum circumdatum montibus inaccessis. Compare Strabo, xvi. 779; and for the different roads to Petra, Ritter, p. 997 sqq. Ver. 4 shows the worthlessness of this reliance of the Edomites. The object to DIN, viz. 3P, does not follow till the second clause: If thou makest thy nest high like the eagle, which builds its nest upon the loftiest jagged rocks (Job xxxix. 27, 28). This thought is hyperbolically intensified in the second clause: if thy nest had been placed among stars. OY is not an infinitive, but a passive participle, as in the primary passage, Num. xxiv. 21, which Obadiah had before his mind, and in 1 Sam. ix. 24, 2 Sam. xiii. 32; but 43? is nevertheless to be taken as an accusative of the object, after the analogy of the construction of passives ¢. accus. obj. (see Ges. § 143, J, a.)
Vers. 5-7. The prophet sees this overthrow of Edom from its lofty height as something that has already happened, and he now depicts the utter devastation of Edom through the medium of the enemies whom Jehovah has summoned against it. Ver. 5. “If thieves had come to thee, if robbers by night,
1 Jerome observes on ver. 6: “‘ And indeed... throughout the whole of the southern region of the Idumeans, from Eleutheropolis to Petra and Hala (for this is a possession of Esau), there are small dwellings in caves; and on account of the great heat of the sun, since it is a southern province, subterranean huts are used.”
alas, how art thow-destroyed! would they not steal their sufficiency? If vine-dressers had come to thee, would they not leave gleanings? Ver. 6. How have the things of Esau been explored, his hidden treasures desired! Ver.7. Even to the border have all the men of thy covenant sent thee: the men of thy peace have deceived thee, overpowered thee. They make thy bread a wound under thee. There is no understanding in him.” In order to exhibit the more vividly the complete clearing out of Edom, Obadiah supposes two cases of plundering in which there is still something left (ver. 5), and then shows that the enemies in Edom will act much worse than this. 8 with the perfect supposes a case to have already occurred, when, although it does not as yet exist in reality, it does so in imagination. "233 are common thieves, and np’ ‘T1¥ robbers by night, who carry off another’s property by force. With this second expression, the verb 7 i832 must be repeated. “To thee,” i.c. to do thee harm; it is actually equivalent to “upon thee.”. The following words 70273 7S cannot form the apodosis to the two previous clauses, because nidméthdh is too strong a term for the injury inflicted by thieves or robbers, but chiefly because the following expression 13) 3333 Ni21 is irreconcilable with such an explanation, the thought that thieves steal 0% being quite opposed to nidmah, or being destroyed. The clause “how art thou destroyed” must rather be taken as pointing far beyond the contents of vers. 5¢ and 6. It is more fully explained in ver. 9, and is thereby proved to be a thought thrown in parenthetically, with which the prophet anticipates the principal fact in his lively description, in the form of an exclamation of amazement. The apodosis to ’im gannabhim (if robbers, etc.) follows in the words “ do they not steal” (= they surely steal) dayyam, ie. their sufficiency (see Delitzsch on Isa. xl. 16); that is to say, as much as they need, or can use, or find lying open before them. The picture of the grape-gatherers says the same thing. They also do not take away all, even to the very last, but leave some gleanings behind, not only if they fear God, according to Lev. xix. 10, Deut. xxiv. 21, as Hitzig supposes, but even if they do not trouble themselves about God’s commandments at all, because many a bunch escapes their notice which is only discovered on careful gleaning. Edom, on the contrary, is completely cleared out. In ver. 6 the address to Edom passes over into words concerning him. WY is construed as a collective with the plural. 8 is a question of amazement. Chdphas, to search through, to explore (cf. Zeph. i. 12, 13). Ba‘ah (nibh'a), to beg, to ask; here in the niphal to be desired. Matspon, am. Ney. from tsiphan, does not mean a secret place, but a hidden thing or treasure (ra Kxexpuppéva adrod, LXX.). Obadiah mentions the plundering first, because Petra, the capital of Edom, was a great emporium of the Syrio-Arabian trade, where many valuables were stored (vid. Diod. Sic. xix. 95), and because with the loss of these riches the prosperity and power of Edom were destroyed.'—Ver. 7. In the midst of this calamity Edom will be forsaken and betrayed by its allies, and will also be unable to procure any deliverance for itself by its own understanding. The allies send Edom even to the border. The meaning of this is not that they will not receive the Edomitish fugitives, but drive them back to the frontier, so that they fall into the hands of the enemy (Hitzig and others); for the suffix | cannot refer to the small number of fugitives from Edom who have escaped the massacre, but applies to Edom asanation. The latter seeks for help and support from their allies,—namely, through the medium of ambassadors whom it sends to them. But the ambassadors, and in their persons the Edomites themselves, are sent back to the frontier by all the allies, because they will not entangle themselves in the fate of Edom. Sending to the frontier, however, is not to be understood as signifying that the allies “send their troops with them as far as the frontier, and then order them to turn back,” as Michaelis supposes; for “if the allies were unwilling to help, they would hardly call out the army to march as far as the frontier” (Hitzig). Nor is this implied either in Mb or ww; for shillzich means to send away, to dismiss, and both here and in Gen. xii. 20 to send across the frontier. This was a deception of the expectation of the Edomites, although the words “have deceived thee” belong, strictly speaking, to ey) what follows, and not to the conduct of the allies. Wow ‘WIN,
1 Jeremiah (ch. xlix. 9) has greatly altered the words of Obadiah, dropping the comparison of the enemy to thieves and grape-gatherers, and representing the enemy as being themselves grape-gatherers who leave no gleaning, and thieves who waste till they have enough; and thereby considerably weakening the poetical picture.
- an expression taken from Ps. xli. 10, both here and in Jer. xxxvill. 22 (cf. xx. 10), the men or people with whom thou didst live in peace, are probably neighbouring Arabian tribes, who had made commercial treaties with the Edomites. They deceived, or rather overpowered, Edom. 3. is the practical explanation and more precise definition of 3Nv. But the answer to the question whether the overpowering was carried out by cunning and deception (Jer. xx. 10, xxxviii. 22), or by open violence (Gen. xxxii. 26; Ps. exxix. 2), depends upon the explanation given to the next sentence, about which there are great diversities of opinion, partly on account of the different explanations given of an, and partly on account of the different renderings given to 112. The latter occurs in Hos. v. 13 and Jer. xxx. 13 in the sense of a festering wound or abscess, and the rabbinical commentators and lexicographers haye retained this meaning in the passage before us, On the other hand, the older translators have here évedpa (LXX.), and Symm. ovvdecpos and éidecus, Vulg. insidie; and hence the modern rendering, they lay a snare, or place a trap under thee. But this rendering cannot be vindicated etymologically, since zur (= zdrar) does not mean to bind, but to press together or squeeze out. Nor can the form mdzor be taken as a contraction of m*zordh, as Hitzig supposes, since this is derived from zdrdh, to strew or scatter. And no weight is to be attached to the opinion of Aguila with his literal translation, for the simple reason that his rendering of Hos. v. 13 is decidedly false. Ewald and Hitzig prefer the rendering “net; but this, again, cannot be sustained either from the expression m°zordh hdresheth in Prov. i. 17 (Hitzig), or from the Syriac m*zar, extendit (Ges. Addid. ad thes. p. 96). The only meaning that can be sustained is abscess or wound. We must therefore adhere to the rendering, “ they make thy bread a wound under thee.” For the proposal to take lachin*kha (thy bread) as a second genitive dependent upon ’anshé (the men), is not only opposed to the accents and the parallelism of the members, according to which ’anshé sh‘lomekhé (the men of thy peace) must conclude the second clause, just as ’unshé b‘rithekha (the men of thy covenant) closes the first; but it is altogether unexampled, and the expression ’anshé lachm‘khé isitsclf unheard, of. For this reason we must not even supply ’anshé to lachmkhd from the previous sentence, or make “the men of thy bread” the subject, notwithstanding the fact that the LXX., the Chald., the Syr., and Jerome have adopted this as the meaning. Still less can lachm’khé stand in the place of “nis one (they that eat thy bread), as some suppose. Lachm’khd can only be the first object to ydstma, and consequently the subject of the previous clause still continues in force: they who befriended thee make thy bread, i.e. the bread which they ate from thee or with thee, not “the bread which thou seekest from them” (Hitzig), into a wound under thee, z.e. an occasion for destroying thee. We have not to think of common meals of hospitality here, as Rashi, Rosenmiiller, and others do; but the words are to be taken figuratively, after the analogy of Ps, xli. 10, which floated before the prophet’s mind, “ He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up the heel against me,” as denoting conspiracies on the part of those who were allied to Edom, and drew their own sustenance from it, the rich trading nation, to destroy that very nation which was now oppressed by its foes. The only difficulty is in the word TPANA, under thee, inasmuch as the meaning “without thy knowledge” (clam te), which Vatablus and Drusius adopt, cannot be sustained, and least of all from 2 Sam. iil. 12. We must connect JANA closely with 7”, in this sense, that the wound is inflicted upon the lower part of the body, to express its dangerous nature, inasmuch as wounds upon which one sits or lies are hard to heal. Consequently 1 3 (they prevail against thee) is to be understood as denoting conquest, not by an unexpected attack or open violence, but by cunning and deceit, or by secret treachery. The last clause, 1 1NAM PS, does not give the reason why the thing described was to happen to the Edomites (Chald., Theod.); nor is it to be connected with mdzor as a relative clause (Hitzig), or as explanatory of TANA, “to thee, without thy perceiving it, or before thou perccivest it” (Luther and L. de Dieu). The very change from the second person to the third (j2) is a proof that it introduces an independent statement,—namely, that in consequence of the calamity which thus bursts upon the Edomites, they lose their wonted discernment, and neither know what to do nor how to help them-
- selves (Maurer and Caspari). This thought is expanded still further in vers. 8, 9.