Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Obadiah · About this commentary
The Day You Stood Aloof
Obadiah 1:10-14
10 For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever. · WEB
The charge is not that Edom attacked Jerusalem; it is that a brother stood on the other side and called it neutrality.
Verse 10 names crime and criminal in one breath: violence — chamas H2555 — done to your brother Jacob. The word brother carries the sentencing. And the violence begins as inaction. The day strangers cast lots for Jerusalem , Edom stood on the other side — and standing there, says verse 11, made Edom like one of them. In a brother's calamity there is no neutral ground.
Then the day is relived, and the word day itself tolls ten times through verses 11 to 14. The conduct escalates: do not gloat, do not rejoice, do not speak proudly, do not enter the gate, do not loot, do not cut down the fugitives at the crossroads. Eye, mouth, feet, hands, sword — spectating matures into throat-cutting in a single day. And the prohibitions are written as though the day were still running, the choice still open to whoever reads them.
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