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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Obediah 1:7 - 1:7
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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 ךָ cannot refer to the small number of fugitives from Edom who have escaped the massacre, but applies to Edom as a nation. 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 שִׁלְּחוּךָ or הִשִּׁיאוּךָ; for shillēăch means to send away, to dismiss, and both here and in Gen 12:20 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 what follows, and not to the conduct of the allies. אַנְשֵׁי שְׁלֹמֶךָ, an expression taken from Psa 41:10, both here and in Jer 38:22 (cf. Jer 20:10), 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. יָֽכְלוּ is the practical explanation and more precise definition of הִשִּׁיאוּ.
But the answer to the question whether the overpowering was carried out by cunning and deception (Jer 20:10; Jer 38:22), or by open violence (Gen 32:26; Psa 129:2), 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 לַחְמְךָ, and partly on account of the different renderings given to מָזוֹר. The latter occurs in Hos 5:13 and Jer 30:13 in the sense of a festering wound or abscess, and the rabbinical commentators and lexicographers have retained this meaning in the passage before us. On the other hand, the older translators have here ἔνεδρα (lxx), תַקְלָא, offence, σκάνδαλον (Chald.), kemi'nā', insidiae (Syr.), Aq. and Symm. σύνδεσμος and ἐπίδεσις, Vulg. insidiae; and hence the modern rendering, they lay a snare, or place a trap under thee. But this rendering cannot be vindicated etymologically, since zūr (= zârar) does not mean to bind, but to press together or squeeze out. Nor can the form mâzōr be taken as a contraction of mezōrâh, as Hitzig supposes, since this is derived from zârâh, to strew or scatter. And no weight is to be attached to the opinion of Aquila with his literal translation, for the simple reason that his rendering of Hos 5:13 is decidedly false. Ewald and Hitzig prefer the rendering “net;” but this, again, cannot be sustained either from the expression mezorâh hâresheth in Pro 1:17 (Hitzig), or from the Syriac, mezar, extendit (Ges. Addid. ad thes. p. 96). The only meaning that can be sustained as abscess or wound. We must therefore adhere to the rendering, “they make thy bread a wound under thee.” For the proposal to take lachmekhâ (thy bread) as a second genitive dependent upon 'anshē (the men), is not only opposed to the accents and the parallelism of the members, according to which 'anshē shelōmekhâ (the men of thy peace) must conclude the second clause, just as 'anshē berı̄thekhâ (the men of thy covenant) closes the first; but it is altogether unexampled, and the expression 'anshē lachmekhâ is itself unheard of. For this reason we must not even supply 'anshē to lachmekhâ 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 lachmekhâ stand in the place of אֹכְלֵי לַחְמְךָ (they that eat thy bread), as some suppose. Lachmekhâ can only be the first object to yâsı̄mū, 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, i.e., an occasion for destroying thee. We have not to think of common meals of hospitality here, as Rashi, Rosenmüller, and others do; but the words are to be taken figuratively, after the analogy of Psa 41:10, 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 תַּחְתֶּיךָ, under thee, inasmuch as the meaning “without thy knowledge” (clam te), which Vatablus and Drusius adopt, cannot be sustained, and least of all from 2Sa 3:12. We must connect תַּחְתֶּיךָ closely with מָזוֹר, 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 יָֽכְוְּ לְךָ (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, אֵין תְּבוּנָה וגו, does not give the reason why the thing described was to happen to the Edomites (Chald., Theod.); nor is it to be connected with mâzōr as a relative clause (Hitzig), or as explanatory of תַּחְתֶּיךָ, “to thee, without thy perceiving it, or before thou perceivest it” (Luther and L. de Dieu). The very change from the second person to the third ( בּוֹ) 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 themselves (Maurer and Caspari). This thought is expanded still further in Oba 1:8, Oba 1:9.