Albert Barnes Commentary Obadiah 1:21

"And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be Jehovah`s." — Obadiah 1:21 (ASV)

And saviors shall ascend on Mount Zion - The body should not be without its head; saviors there should be, and those, successively. The title was familiar to them of old (Judges 3:9, Judges 3:15). The children of Israel cried unto the Lord, Who raised them up a savior, and he saved them. And the Lord gave unto Israel a savior (2 Kings 13:5), in the time of Jehoahaz. Nehemiah says to God (Nehemiah 9:27), According to Your manifold mercies, You gave them saviours, who should save them from the hands of their enemies. So there should be thereafter.

Such were Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, and Hyrcanus, Alexander, Aristobulus. They are said to “ascend” as to a place of dignity, to “ascend on Mount Zion;” not to go up towards it, but to dwell and abide in it, which previously was defiled, and which now was to be holy.

He ends, as he began, with Mount Zion, the “holy hill,” where God was pleased to dwell (Psalms 2:6, Psalms 68:16), to reveal Himself. In both, is the judgment of Esau. Mount Zion stands over against Mount Esau, God’s holy mount against the mountains of human pride, the Church against the world.

And with this agrees the office assigned, which is almost more than that of man. He began his prophecy of the deliverance of God’s people, In Mount Zion shall be an escaped remnant; he ends, saviors shall ascend on Mount Zion: he began, it shall be holiness; he closes, and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.

To judge the mount of Esau. Judges, appointed by God, judge His people; saviors, raised up by God, deliver them. But only once does Ezekiel speak of man’s judging another nation as the instrument of God (Ezekiel 24:14): I, the Lord, have spoken it – and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent; according to your ways and according to your doings shall they judge you, says the Lord God. But it is the prerogative of God.

And so, while the word “saviours” includes those who, before and afterward, were the instruments of God in saving His Church and people, yet all saviors shadowed forth or foreshadowed the one Savior, who alone has the office of Judge. In His kingdom, and associated by Him with Him (1 Corinthians 6:2), the saints shall judge the world, as He said to His Apostles (Matthew 19:28), you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of His glory, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

And the last words must at all times have recalled that great prophecy of the Passion, and of its fruits in the conversion of the Gentiles, from which it is taken (Psalms 22).

The outward incorporation of Edom into Judah through Hyrcanus was but a shadow of that inward union when the kingdom of God was established on earth, and Edom was enfolded in the one kingdom of Christ. Its cities, from where the destroyers and deadly foes of Judah had issued, became the sees of Christian Bishops. And in this way too, Edom was but the representative of others, aliens from and enemies of God, to whom His kingdom came, in whom He reigns and will reign, glorified forever in His saints, whom He has redeemed with His most precious Blood.

And the kingdom shall be the Lord’s - Majestic, comprehensive simplicity of prophecy! All time and eternity, the struggles of time and the rest of eternity, are summed up in those three words. Zion and Edom retire from sight; both are comprehended in that one kingdom, and God is all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28). The strife is ended; not only that ancient strife between the evil and the good, the oppressor and the oppressed, the subduer and the subdued, but the whole strife and disobedience of the creature toward the Creator, man against his God. Outward prosperity had passed away since David had said the great words (Psalms 22:28), the kingdom is the Lord’s. Dark days had come.

Obadiah saw on and beyond to darker times yet, but concludes all his prophecy with this: the kingdom shall be the Lord’s. Daniel saw what Obadiah foresaw, the kingdom of Judah also broken; yet, as a captive, he repeated the same to the then monarch of the world (Jeremiah 50:28), the hammer of the whole earth, which had broken in pieces the petty kingdom of Judah and carried its people captive (Daniel 2:44; see also Daniel 7:14, Daniel 7:27): the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed.

Zechariah saw the poor fragments which returned from the captivity and their poor estate, yet said the same (Zechariah 14:9): The Lord shall be king over all the earth. All at once that kingdom came; the fishermen, the tax collector, and the tentmaker were its captains. The scourge, the claw, thongs, rack, hooks, sword, fire, torture, the red-hot iron seat, the cross, the wild beast – not employed, but endured – were its arms. The dungeon and the mine were its palaces; fiery words of truth were its (Psalms 45:5) sharp arrows in the hearts of the King’s enemies; for One spoke by them, whose word is with power.

The strong sense of the Roman, the acuteness of the Greek, and the simplicity of the Barbarian cast away their unbelief or their misbelief and joined in the one song (Revelation 19:6): The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. The imposture of Mohammed, however awfully it tore away countless numbers from the faith of Christ, still was forced to spread the worship of the One God, who, when the prophets spoke, seemed to be the God of the Jews only.

Who could foretell such a kingdom but He who alone could found it, who alone has for these eighteen centuries preserved, and now is again enlarging it—God Omnipotent and Omniscient, who awakened the hearts which He had made, to believe in Him and to love Him?

Blessed peaceful kingdom even here, in this valley of tears and of strife, where God rules the soul, freeing it from the tyranny of the world and Satan and its own passions, inspiring it to know Himself, the Highest Truth, and to love Him who is love, and to adore Him who is infinite majesty!

Blessed kingdom, in which God reigns in us by grace, that He may bring us to His heavenly kingdom, where there is the manifest vision of Himself, and perfect love of Him, blissful society, eternal fruition of Himself; “where is supreme and certain security, secure tranquility, tranquil security, joyous happiness, happy eternity, eternal blessedness, blessed vision of God forever, where is perfect love, fear none, eternal day and One Spirit in all!”