Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Obadiah · About this commentary
The Kingdom Will Be Yahweh's
Obadiah 1:17-21
17 But in Mount Zion, there will be those who escape, and it will be holy. The house of Jacob will possess their possessions. · WEB
The book that began in Edom's heights ends on Yahweh's mountain — escape, holiness, possession, and a kingdom that is his.
Verse 17 turns on one conjunction: but in Mount Zion there will be escape — peletah H6413 — and holiness, and possession regained. The promise is quoted inside Scripture itself: Joel repeats it in Obadiah's words and signs it, as Yahweh has said Joel 2:32. Verse 18 sets the figure — Jacob a fire, Joseph a flame, Esau stubble.
Verses 19 and 20 hand out the ground: the South takes Esau's mountain, the lowland takes Philistia , Benjamin takes Gilead , and the exiles inherit from Zarephath to the cities of the Negev. The point is reversal: the dispossessed possess. Verse 21 finishes it. Saviors go up on Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Esau, and the kingdom will be Yahweh's. Verse 3 asked who could bring Edom down; verse 21 names whose the kingdom is. Between those two lines the whole book happens.
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