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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Obediah 1:17 - 1:17
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The Kingdom of Jehovah Established upon Zion. - The prophecy advances from the judgment upon all the heathen to the completion of the kingdom of God by the raising up of Israel to world-wide dominion. While the judgment is falling upon all the heathen nations, Mount Zion will be an asylum for those who are delivered. Judah and Israel will capture the possessions of the nations, destroy Edom, and extend its borders on every side (Oba 1:17-19). The Israelites scattered among the nations will return into their enlarged inheritances, and upon Zion will saviours arise, to judge Edom, and the kingdom will then be the Lord's (Oba 1:20, Oba 1:21). This promise is appended as an antithesis to the proclamation of judgment in Oba 1:16.
Oba 1:17
“But upon Mount Zion will be that which has been saved, and it will be a sanctuary, and the house of Jacob will take possession of their possessions.” Upon Mount Zion, which the Edomites have now desecrated by drinking carousals, there will then, when the nations are obliged to drink the cup of intoxication even to their utter destruction, be pelētâh, that which has escaped, i.e., the multitude of those who have been rescued and preserved throughout the judgment. See the explanation of this at Joe 2:32, where this thought is still further expounded. Mount Zion is the seat of the kingdom of Jehovah (cf. Oba 1:21). There the Lord is enthroned (Joe 3:17), and His rescued people with Him. And it (Mount Zion) will be qōdesh, a sanctuary, i.e., inviolable; the heathen will no more dare to tread it and defile it (Joe 3:17). It follows from this, that the rescued crowd upon it will also be a holy people (“ a holy seed,” Isa 6:13). This sanctified people of the Lord, the house of Jacob, will capture the possessions of their foes. The suffix attached to מוֹרָשֵׁיהֶם is supposed by many to refer to בֵּית יַעֲקֹב: those of the house of Jacob, i.e., the rescued Israelites, will take their former possessions once more. This view cannot be overthrown by the simple remark that yârash cannot mean to take possession again; for that meaning might be given to it by the context, as, for example, in Deu 30:5. But it is a decisive objection to it, that neither in what precedes nor in what follows is there any reference to Israel as having been carried away. The penetration of foes into the gates of Jerusalem, the plundering of the city, and the casting of lots upon the booty and the prisoners (Oba 1:11), do not involve the carrying away of the whole nation into exile; and the gâlūth of the sons of Israel and Jerusalem in Oba 1:20 is clearly distinguished from the “house of Jacob” in Oba 1:18. And since we have first of all (Oba 1:18, Oba 1:19) an announcement of the conquest of Edom by the house of Jacob, and the capture of the mountains of Esau, of Philistia, etc., by the inhabitants of the south-land, i.e., by Judaeans; and then in Oba 1:20 the possession of the south-land is promised to the gâluth (captivity); this gâluth can only have been a small fragment of the nation, and therefore the carrying away can only have extended to a number of prisoners of war, whilst the kernel of the nation had remained in the land, i.e., in its own possessions. The objection offered to this, namely, that if we refer the suffix in mōrâshēhem (their possessions) to kŏl-haggōyı̄m (all nations), Judah would have to take possession of all nations, which is quite incredible and even at variance with Oba 1:19, Oba 1:20, inasmuch as the only enemies' land mentioned there (Oba 1:19) is the territory of the Edomites and Philistines, whilst the other countries or portions of country mentioned there are not enemies' land at all. For there is no incredibility in the taking of the land of all nations by Judah, except on the assumption that Judah merely denotes the posterity or remnant of the citizens of the earthly kingdom of Judah. But this is not what Obadiah says. He does not mention Judah, but the house of Jacob, and means thereby not the natural Israel, but the people of God, who are eventually to obtain the dominion of the world. The discrepancy between Oba 1:17 and Oba 1:19 is not greater than that between שְׁתִיתֶם in Oba 1:16 and יִשְּׁתּוּ כָל־הַגּוֹיִם in Oba 1:16, and disappears if we only recognise the fact that Edom and the Philistines are simply mentioned in Oba 1:19 as types of the heathen world in its hostility to god. We therefore regard the application of the expression mōrâshēhem to the possessions of the heathen nations as the only correct one, and that all the more because the וְיָרְשׁוּ in Oba 1:19 is very clearly seen to be a more exact explanation of the וְיָרְשׁוּ in Oba 1:17. In Oba 1:17 Obadiah gives, in a few brief words, the sum and substance of the salvation which awaits the people of the Lord in the future. This salvation is unfolded still further in what follows, and first of all in Oba 1:18, Oba 1:19, by a fuller exposition of the thought expressed in Oba 1:17.