Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Obadiah · About this commentary
As You Have Done
Obadiah 1:15-16
15 For the day of Yahweh is near all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head. · WEB
The day of Yahweh takes Edom's own measure and applies it — deeds return on the head that devised them.
Verse 15 widens the lens without warning: the day of Yahweh is near — on all the nations. Edom's case was never private. It is the specimen, tried first so the principle can be published: as you have done, it will be done to you. Scripture states the law in the same terms elsewhere — the trouble a man digs falls back on him Psalms 7:15–16.
Verse 16 pours it into a cup. As Edom drank on the holy mountain, so all the nations will drink, and swallow, and be as though they had not been. It is the cup Jeremiah carried to the nations Jeremiah 25:15. The last clause is the terrible one — not defeat but erasure, the exact inverse of what verse 17 will say survives on Zion.
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