In Obadiah 1, the sole chapter in this book, there's a prophecy of destruction for Edom. The people of the land of Edom -- the Edomites -- were descendants of Esau, so they were cousins and neighbors of the Jewish people.

In Swedenborg's sketch of the internal sense of this part of the Word, (The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms 213), we find this:

- Edom represents people who are in self-intelligence and who pervert the sense of the letter of the word.

- In Obadiah 1:1-3, They must be combated, because they believe themselves to be more intelligent than others.

- In 1:4-5, They defend falsities by natural light, but they will perish, and with them, the falsities themselves.

- In 1:6, They have pride.

- In 1:7, They have no truths.

- In 1:8-9, They will perish on the day of judgment, because they have oppressed the church.

- In 1:10-14, They destroy the church still further, and this is their delight.

- In 1:15-16, Destruction will come upon them on the day of judgment.

- In 1:17, A new church will come into existence.

- In 1:18, in place of the former church, which is condemned.

- In 1:19-21, The new church will be in the understanding of truth, and those that are in it will be saved.

This story was written around 2600 years ago. There were people alive then who were impressed with their own intelligence. They didn't respect the Word's inner meaning, and twisted its literal meaning. In Obadiah 1:10, we see them even taking delight in destroying true ideas.

Today, maybe it's easier than ever to be impressed by our own intelligence, because we can do so much. We're putting vehicles on Mars, and making robots that can do back flips. But how should we regard the Word? We need to look at its deep meaning, to really understand spiritual truths -- so that we have the fundamental spiritual wisdom to hold and harness our intelligence -- and to be part of the Lord's church, where we're open to receiving his good and truth, and living by it.

Like love, wisdom can come from many levels. Ultimately, though, all wisdom is a reflection of the perfect, infinite, divine wisdom that is the Lord's. At its heart, wisdom is love's imperative desire to take form. That's a tricky statement, but think of it this way: If you love someone, you are simultaneously filled with the desire to express that love. The desire for expression is so powerful and automatic that it is really part of the love itself. And that desire to express love is wisdom. Wisdom thus gives love form, and gives it tools so it can reach out and affect the world. Wisdom gathers knowledge so that from love it can form ideas and understanding of what it is to be good and how to be good. And sometimes, when the Bible talks of being wise, that's the kind of wisdom that is meant – a wisdom that seeks knowledge from a love of what is good, so it can use that knowledge for good. At other times, though, "wise" represents perversions of this, with knowledge twisted to other ends. A somewhat neutral example is the "wise men" of Egypt. They were people who had an extensive knowledge of the correspondences between spiritual things and natural things, but took an external view of them, using them for worldly knowledge instead of spiritual knowledge. A negative example is in Revelation 13:14, which says "here is wisdom" and offers 666 as the mark of the beast. There "wisdom" represents insanity, with knowledge twisted completely to evil ends.