Albert Barnes Commentary Obadiah 1

The vision of Obadiah - that is, of “the worshiper of God.” The prophet would be known only by that which his name signifies, that he worshiped God. He tells us in this double title, through whom the prophecy came, and from whom it came. His name authenticated the prophecy to the Jewish Church. From then on, he chose to remain wholly hidden. He entitles it “a vision,” as the prophets were called “seers” (1 Samuel 9:9), although he relates, not the vision which he saw, but its substance and meaning. Probably the future was unfolded to him in the form of sights spread out before his mind, of which he spoke in words given to him by God.

His language consists of a succession of pictures, which he may have seen, and, in his picture language, described. “As prophecy is called “the word,” because God spoke to the prophets within, so it is called “vision,” because the prophet saw, with the eyes of the mind and by the light with which they are illumined, what God wills to be known to them.”

The name also expresses the certainty of their knowledge. “Among the organs of our senses, sight has the most evident knowledge of those things which are the object of our senses. Hence, the contemplation of the things which are true is called “vision,” on account of the evidence and assured certainty. On that ground the prophet was called “seer.”

Thus saith the Lord God concerning Edom - This second title states that the whole which follows is from God. What immediately follows is said in Obadiah’s own person; but all, whether so spoken or directly in the Person of God, was alike the word of God. God spoke in or by the prophets, in both ways, since (2 Peter 1:21) prophecy came not by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Obadiah, in that he uses, in regard to his whole prophecy, words which other prophets use in delivering a direct message from God, ascribes the whole of his prophecy to God, as immediately as other prophets did any words which God commanded them to speak. The words are a rule for all prophecy, that all comes directly from God.

We have heard a rumor - rather, “a report;” literally “a hearing, a thing heard,” as Isaiah says (Isaiah 53:1), Who hath believed our report? A “report” is certain or uncertain, according to the authority from whom it comes. This “report” was certainly true, since it was “from the Lord.” By the plural, “we,” Obadiah may have associated with himself either other prophets of his own day, such as Joel and Amos, who, with those yet earlier, like Balaam and David, had prophesied against Edom, or the people, for whose sakes God made it known to him. In either case, the prophet does not stand alone for himself. He hears with “the goodly company of the prophets;” and the people of God hear in him, as Isaiah says again (Isaiah 21:10), that which I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.

And an ambassador is sent among the pagan - The “ambassador” is any agent, visible or invisible, sent by God. Human powers, who wish to stir up war, send human messengers. All things stand at God’s command, and whatever or whoever He employs, is a messenger from Him. He uses our language to us. He may have employed an angel, as He says (Psalms 78:49), He sent evil angels among them, and as, through the permission given to a lying spirit (1 Kings 22:21–23), He executed His judgments upon Ahab, who of his own free will believed the evil spirit and disbelieved Himself.

So (Judges 9:23) God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem, allowing His rebellious spirit to bring about the punishment of evil men by further inflaming the evil passions of which they were slaves. Evil spirits, in their malice and rebellion, while stirring up the lust of conquest, are still God’s messengers, in that He overrules them; as, to Paul (2 Corinthians 12:7), the thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him, was still the gift of God. It was given me, he says.

Arise ye and let us rise - He who rouses them, says, “Arise ye,” and they quickly echo the words, “and let us arise.” The will of God is fulfilled at once. While eager to accomplish their own ends, they fulfill, the more, the purpose of God. Whether the first agent is man’s own passions, or the evil spirit who stirs them, the impulse spreads from the one or the few to the many. But all catch the spark cast in among them. The summons finds a ready response. “Arise,” is the command of God, however given; “let us arise,” is the eager response of man’s avarice or pride or ambition, fulfilling impetuously the secret will of God; as a tiger, let loose upon man by man, fulfills the will of its owner, while sating its own thirst for blood. So Isaiah hears (Isaiah 13:4) the noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people, a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together. The Medes and Persians thought at that time of nothing less than that they were instruments of the One God, whom they knew not.

But Isaiah continues; The Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle; and, when it was fulfilled, Cyrus saw and acknowledged it (Ezra 1:1–2).

Behold, I have made you small - God, having declared His future judgments on Edom, assigns the first ground of those judgments. Pride was the root of Edom’s sin, then envy; then followed exultation at his brother’s fall, hard-heartedness, and bloodshed. All this was against the disposition of God’s Providence for him. God had made him small—in numbers, in honor, in territory. Edom was a wild mountain people. It was strongly guarded in the rock-enclosed dwelling, which God had assigned it. Like the Swiss or the Tyrolese of old, or the inhabitants of Mount Caucasus now, it had strength for resistance through the advantages of its situation, not for aggression, unless it was that of a robber horde. But lowness, as people use it, is the mother either of lowliness or pride.

A low estate, acquiesced in by the grace of God, is the parent of lowliness; when rebelled against, it generates a greater intensity of pride than greatness, because that pride is against nature itself and God’s appointment. The pride of human greatness, sinful as it is, is allied to a natural nobility of character. Copying pervertedly the greatness of God, the soul, when it receives the Spirit of God, casts off the slough, and retains its nobility transfigured by grace. The conceit of littleness has the hideousness of those monstrous combinations, the more hideous because unnatural—not a corruption only, but a distortion of nature.

Edom never attempted anything of moment by itself. You are greatly despised. Weakness, in itself, is neither despicable nor despised. It is despised only when it vaunts itself to be what it is not. God tells Edom what, amid its pride, it was in itself, despicable; what it would thereafter be, despised.

The pride of your heart has deceived you – Not the strength of its mountain fortresses, strong though they were, deceived Edom, but “the pride of his heart.” That strength was only the occasion that called forth the “pride.” Yet, it was strong in its dwelling place. God, as it were, admits it to them: “Dweller in the clefts of the rocks, the loftiness of his habitation.”

“The whole southern country of the Edomites,” says Jerome, “from Eleutheropolis to Petra and Selah (which are the possessions of Esau), has minute dwellings in caves; and on account of the oppressive heat of the sun, as being a southern province, has underground cottages.” Its inhabitants, whom Edom expelled (Deuteronomy 2:12), were therefore called Horites, that is, dwellers in caves.

Its chief city was called Selah or Petra, “rock.” It was a city unique among the works of man. “The eagles” placed their nests in the rocky caves at a height of several hundred feet above the level of the valley... “The power of the conception which would frame a range of mountain-rocks into a memorial of the human name, which, once of noble name and highly praised, sought, through might of its own, to clothe itself with the imperishability of the eternal Word, is here the same as in the contemporary monuments of the temple-rocks of Elephantine or at least those of the Egyptian Thebes.” The ornamental buildings, so often admired by travelers, belong to a later date.

Those nests in the rocks, piled over one another, meeting you in every recess, lining each fresh winding of the valleys as each opened on the discoverer, often at heights where (now that the face of the rock and its approach, probably hewn in it, have crumbled away) you can scarcely imagine how human foot ever climbed, must have been the work of the first hardy mountaineers, whose feet were like the chamois.

Such habitations imply not an uncivilized people, but a hardy, active one. In those narrow valleys, so scorched by a southern sun, they were at once the coolest summer dwellings and, amidst the dearth of firewood, the warmest in winter. The dwellings of the living and the sepulchres of the dead were apparently hewn out in the same soft red sandstone rock, and perhaps some of the dwellings of the earlier rock-dwellers were converted into graves by the Nabataeans and their successors who lived in the valley.

The central space has traces of other human habitations. “The ground is covered with heaps of hewn stones, foundations of buildings and vestiges of paved streets, all clearly indicating that a large city once existed here.” “They occupy two miles in circumference, affording room in an oriental city for 30,000 or 40,000 inhabitants.”

Its theater held “above 3,000.” Probably this city belonged altogether to the later Nabataean, Roman, or Christian times. Its existence illustrates the extent of the ancient city of the rock. The whole space—rocks and valleys, embedded in the mountains which encircled it—lay invisible even from the summit of Mount Hor. So nestled was it in its rocks that an enemy could only know of its existence, and an army could only approach it, through treachery. Only two known approaches, from the east and west, enter into it.

The least remarkable approach is described as lying amidst “wild fantastic mountains,” “rocks in towering masses,” “over steep and slippery passes,” or “winding in recesses below.” Six hours of such passes led to the western side of Petra. The Greeks spoke of it as two days’ journey from their “world.” However you approached, the road lay through defiles.

The Greeks knew of only “one ascent to it, and that” (as they deemed it) “made by hand” (the one from the east). The Muslims now think the Sik or chasm—the two miles of ravine by which it is approached—to be supernatural, made by the rod of Moses when he struck the rock.

Demetrius, “the Besieger,” at the head of 8,000 men (the 4,000 infantry selected for their swiftness of foot from the whole army), made repeated assaults on the place, but “those within had an easy victory from its commanding height.” “A few hundred men might defend the entrance against a large army.”

Its width is described as from 10 to 30 feet, “a rent in a mountain wall, a magnificent gorge, a mile and a half long, winding like the most flexible of rivers, between rocks almost precipitous, but that they overlap and crumble and crack, as if they would crash over you. The blue sky only just visible above. The valley opens, but contracts again. Then it is honeycombed with cavities of all shapes and sizes. Closing once more, it opens in the area of Petra itself, the torrent bed passing now through absolute desolation and silence, though strewn with the fragments which show that you once entered on a splendid and busy city, gathered along in the rocky banks, as along the quays of some great northern river.”

Beyond this immediate rampart of rocks, there lay between it and the Eastern Empires that vast plateau, almost unapproachable by an enemy who did not know its hidden artificial reservoirs of water. But even if the entrance were gained, what further gain was there, unless the people and its wealth were betrayed by a surprise attack? Striking as the rock-encircled Petra was, a gem in its mountain setting, it was far more marvelous when, as in the prophet’s time, the rock itself was Petra. Inside the defile, an invader would still be outside the city. He might himself become the besieged, rather than the besieger.

In which of these eyries along all those ravines were the eagles to be found? From which of those lairs might Edom’s lion-sons not burst out upon them? Multitudes gave the invaders no advantage in scaling those mountainsides, where, observed themselves by an unseen enemy, they would at last have to fight man to man. What a bivouac it would be, in that narrow spot, themselves encircled by an enemy everywhere, anywhere, and visibly nowhere, among those thousand caves, each larger cave, perhaps, an ambuscade! In man’s sight Edom’s boast was well-founded; but what was it before God?

That says in his heart – The heart has its own language, as distinct and as definite as that formed by the lips, mostly deeper, often truer. It does not need the language of the lips to offend God. Since He answers the heart that seeks Him, so also He replies in displeasure to the heart that despises Him. “Who shall bring me down to the earth?” Such is the language of all self-sufficient security. “Can Alexander fly?” answered the Bactrian chief from another Petra.

On the second night, he was prisoner or slain. Edom probably, in this defiant “Who?” (referring to “Who shall bring me down to the earth?”), included God Himself, who, to Edom, was the God of the Jews only. Yet, men now, too, include God in their defiance, and scarcely veil it from themselves by speaking of “fortune” rather than God; or, if of a coarser sort, they do not even veil it, as in that common terrible saying, “He fears neither God nor devil.” God answers his thought;

Though you exalt yourself as the eagle— (or, your nest) The eagle builds its nest in places nearly inaccessible to man. The Edomites were a race of eagles. It is not the language of poetry or exaggeration but is poetic because it is so true.

And though you set your nest in the stars. This is people’s language, strange as it is: “I shall touch the stars with my crown;” “I shall strike the stars with my lofty crown;” “since I have touched heaven with my lance.”

As Job says (Job 20:6–7), Though his excellency mounts up to the heavens and his head reaches to the clouds, yet he shall perish forever, like his own dung.

And Isaiah to the king of Babylon, the type of Antichrist and of the Evil one (Isaiah 14:13, 11): You have said in your heart, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; your pomp is brought down to the grave, the worm is spread under you, and the worms cover you.

“The pagan saw this. Aesop, when asked what God does, said, ‘He humbles the proud and exalts the humble.’ And another, ‘Whom morning’s dawn beholds proud,
The setting sun beholds bowed.’“

They who boast of being Christians, and are on that ground self-satisfied, promising themselves eternal life, and thinking that they need not fear Hell, because they are Christians and hold the faith of the Apostles, while their lives are altogether alien from Christianity, are such Edomites, priding themselves because they dwell in clefts of the rocks. For it is not enough to believe what Christ and the apostles taught, unless you do what they commanded.

These spiritual Edomites, from a certain love or some fear of future torments, are moved by grief for sin, and give themselves to repentance, fastings, and almsgiving, which is no other than to enter the clefts of the rocks; because they imitate the works of Christ and the apostles who are called rocks, like those to whom John said (Matthew 3:7), O you generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

But, since they have no humility, they become as a result the more inflated with pride. The more of such works they do, the more pleasures they allow themselves, and daily become prouder and more wicked. The pride then of their heart deceives them, because they seem in many things to follow the deeds of the holy, and they fear no enemies, as though they dwelt in clefts of the rocks.

They exalt their throne, in that, through the shadow of lofty deeds, they seem to have many below them, mount as high as they can, and place themselves where they think they need fear no peril. But to them the Lord says, Though you exalt yourself as the eagle—from there will I bring you down. For, however exalted they are, and however they seem good and great, they are brought down to the ground and out from the caverns of the rocks, in which they thought they lived securely, in that they lapse into overt shameful sin; from where all perceive what they also were then, when they were thought to be righteous.

And it is striking that they are compared to eagles. For although the eagle flies aloft, yet from there it looks to the earth and the carcasses and animals which it would devour, as Job writes of it (Job 39:28–30), She dwells and abides upon the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. From there she seeks the prey; her eyes behold from afar; her young ones also suck up blood, and where the slain are, there she is. So these, while they pretend perfection, never turn their eyes away from earthly goods, always casting them on honors, or wealth, or pleasure, without which they count life to be no life.

It is also well called their nest. For, however they may toil in seeking an assured, restful security of life, yet what they build is a nest made of hay and stubble, constructed with great toil, but easily destroyed.

This security of rest they lose when they are permitted, by the just judgment of God, to fall into uncleanness, ambition, or the foulest sins, and are deprived of the glory which they unjustly gained, and their folly becomes manifest to all.

Of such, among the apostles, was the traitor Judas. But the rich too and the mighty of this world—although they think that their possessions and what, with great toil, they have gained when they have raised themselves above others, are most firm—it is but that nest which they have placed among the stars, soon to be dissipated by wind and rain.

If thieves came to you - The prophet describes their future punishment, by contrast with that which, as a marauding people, they well knew. Thieves and robbers spoil only for their petty end. They take what comes to hand; what they can, they carry off. Shortness of time, difficulty of transport, and the necessity of providing for a retreat limit their plunder. When they have gorged themselves, they depart.

Their plunder is limited. The grape-gatherer leaves gleanings. God promises to His own people, under the same image, that they should have a remnant left (Isaiah 17:6; Isaiah 24:13): Gleaning grapes shall be left in it. It shall be, as gleaning grapes, when the vintage is done. The prophet anticipates the contrast by a burst of sympathy.

In the name of God, he mourns over the destruction which he foretells. He laments over the destruction, even of the deadly enemy of his people. How are you destroyed! So the men of God are accustomed to express their amazement at the greatness of the destruction of the ungodly (Psalms 73:19). How are they brought into desolation as in a moment! (Isaiah 14:4, 14:12). How has the oppressor ceased! How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! (Jeremiah 50:23). How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken! How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! (Jeremiah 51:41). How is Sheshach taken! How is the praise of the whole earth surprised!