Obadiah 1:10-14

The Cause of Edom's Destruction

The scene changes. Another picture of violence and cruelty now rises before the prophet's eyes. He sees Jerusalem encompassed by enemies and overcome. Strangers carry away captive her forces, foreigners enter into her gates. And there, not only standing aside in unbrotherly neutrality, but exulting with malicious joy, speaking words of proud scorn, doing acts of robbery and wrong, are seen the Edomites. The two pictures, one of the past, the other of the future, he is commissioned to portray before the eyes of men, and to reveal the hidden link that binds them together in the relationship of cause and effect. Obadiah 1:10 contains a general statement of the sin and its punishment. In Obadiah 1:11 the prophet writes in the impassioned strain of a spectator and describes at length the sin. The punishment is further described in Obadiah 1:15.