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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Obediah 1:5 - 1:5
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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. Oba 1:5. “If thieves had come to thee, if robbers by night, alas, how art thou destroyed! would they not steal their sufficiency? If vine-dressers had come to thee, would they not leave gleanings? Oba 1:6. How have the things of Esau been explored, his hidden treasures desired! Oba 1:7. 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 (Oba 1:5), and then shows that the enemies in Edom will act much worse than this. אִם 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. גַּנָּבִים are common thieves, and שֹׁדְדֵי לַיְלַה robbers by night, who carry off another's property by force. With this second expression, the verb בָּאוּ לְך must be repeated. “To thee,” i.e., to do thee harm; it is actually equivalent to “upon thee.” The following words אֵיךְ נִדְמֵיתָה cannot form the apodosis to the two previous clauses, because nidmēthâh is too strong a term for the injury inflicted by thieves or robbers, but chiefly because the following expression הֲלוֹא יִגְנְבוּ וגו is irreconcilable with such an explanation, the thought that thieves steal דַּיָּם being quite opposed to nidmâh, or being destroyed. The clause “how art thou destroyed” must rather be taken as pointing far beyond the contents of Oba 1:5 and Oba 1:6. It is more fully explained in Oba 1:9, 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 gannâghı̄m (if robbers, etc.) follows in the words “do they not steal” (= they surely steal) dayyâm, i.e., their sufficiency (see Delitzsch on Isa 40:16); 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 19:10; Deu 24:21, 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 Deu 24:6 the address to Edom passes over into words concerning him. עֵשָׂו is construed as a collective with the plural. אֵיךְ is a question of amazement. Châphas, to search through, to explore (cf. Zep 1:12-13). Bâ‛âh (nibh‛ū), to beg, to ask; here in the niphal to be desired. Matspōn, ἁπ. λεγ. from tsâphan, does not mean a secret place, but a hidden thing or treasure (τὰ κεκρυμμένα αὐτοῦ, 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.
(Note: Jeremiah (Jer 49:9) 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.)