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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Obediah 1:20 - 1:20
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
the captivity of this host - that is, the captives of this multitude of Israelites.
shall possess that of the Canaanites - Maurer translates, “the captives ... whom the Canaanites (carried away captive into Phoenicia) even unto Zarephath, shall possess the south,” namely, Idumea as well as the south (Oba 1:19). Henderson, similarly, “the captives that are among the Canaanites,” etc. But the corresponding clauses of the parallelism are better balanced in English Version, “the ten tribes of Israel shall possess the territory of the Canaanites,” namely, Western Palestine and Phoenicia (Jdg 3:3). “And the captives of Jerusalem (and Judah) shall possess the southern cities,” namely, Edom, etc. Each has the region respectively adjoining assigned to it; Israel has the western Canaanite region; Judah, the southern.
even unto Zarephath - near Zidon; called Sarepta in Luk 4:26. The name implies it was a place for smelting metals. From this quarter came the “woman of Canaan” (Mat 15:21, Mat 15:22). Captives of the Jews had been carried into the coasts of Palestine or Canaan, about Tyre and Zidon (Joe 3:3, Joe 3:4; Amo 1:9). The Jews when restored shall possess the territory of their ancient oppressors.
in Sepharad - that is, the Bosphorus [Jerome, from his Hebrew Instructor]. Sephar, according to others (Gen 10:30). Palaeography confirms Jerome. In the cuneiform inscription containing a list of the tribes of Persia [Niebuhr, Tab. 31.1], before Ionia and Greece, and after Cappadocia, comes the name CPaRaD. It was therefore a district of Western Asia Minor, about Lydia, and near the Bosphorus. It is made an appellative by Maurer. “The Jerusalem captives of the dispersion” (compare Jam 1:1), wherever they be dispersed, shall return and possess the southern cities. Sepharad, though literally the district near the Bosphorus, represents the Jews’ far and wide dispersion. Jerome says the name in Assyrian means a boundary, that is, “the Jews scattered in all boundaries and regions.”