Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Trapp Complete Commentary - Obediah 1:8 - 1:8
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Oba_1:8 Shall I not in that day, saith the LORD, even destroy the wise [men] out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau?
Ver. 8. Shall I not in that day, saith the Lord, &c.] Edom was famous for wisdom, as appeareth by Eliphaz the Temanite, and other of Job’s friends who were Idumeans; and Rabshakeh could say that counsel and strength are of war, Isa_36:5 What a price did Agamemnon set upon Nestor and Darius upon Zophirus? Scipio did nothing without his Polybius, and ascribed most of his victories to his advice. "Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war," saith Solomon, Pro_20:18. Romani sedendo vincunt passed for a proverb of old. The Romans conquered by sitting in council; and Cyneas got more cities by his wisdom than Pyrebus by his puissance. But "where no counsel is the people fall," Pro_11:14; and this was Edom’s case in that day, that is, at that time when their confederates betrayed them to their enemy and desolation was at next door by God destroyed their wise men; he either cut them off or infatuated them. Deus, quem destruit, demen tat. When God intends to undo a man (say the Dutch) he first puts out his eyes, and befools him. Pliny saith of the eagle that, setting upon the hart, he lights upon his horns, and there flutters up and down, filling his eyes with dust borne in her feathers; that at last he may cast himself from a rock, and become a prey. God blindeth the understanding and expectorateth the wisdom of those whom he designeth to destruction. "Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the wise counsellors of Pharaoh are become brutish, they have also seduced Egypt. The Lord hath mingled a spirit of perversities in the midst thereof," Isa_19:11-14.