The Bible

 

Obadiah 1

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1 The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Lord Yahweh says about Edom. We have heard news from Yahweh, and an ambassador is sent among the nations, saying, "Arise, and let's rise up against her in battle.

2 Behold, I have made you small among the nations. You are greatly despised.

3 The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high, who says in his heart, 'Who will bring me down to the ground?'

4 Though you mount on high as the eagle, and though your nest is set among the stars, I will bring you down from there," says Yahweh.

5 "If thieves came to you, if robbers by night--oh, what disaster awaits you--wouldn't they only steal until they had enough? If grape pickers came to you, wouldn't they leave some gleaning grapes?

6 How Esau will be ransacked! How his hidden treasures are sought out!

7 All the men of your alliance have brought you on your way, even to the border. The men who were at peace with you have deceived you, and prevailed against you. Friends who eat your bread lay a snare under you. There is no understanding in him."

8 "Won't I in that day," says Yahweh, "destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mountain of Esau?

9 Your mighty men, Teman, will be dismayed, to the end that everyone may be cut off from the mountain of Esau by slaughter.

10 For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever.

11 In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots for Jerusalem, even you were like one of them.

12 But don't look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and don't rejoice over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Don't speak proudly in the day of distress.

13 Don't enter into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Don't look down on their affliction in the day of their calamity, neither seize their wealth on the day of their calamity.

14 Don't stand in the crossroads to cut off those of his who escape. Don't deliver up those of his who remain in the day of distress.

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.

16 For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so will all the nations drink continually. Yes, they will drink, swallow down, and will be as though they had not been.

17 But in Mount Zion, there will be those who escape, and it will be holy. The house of Jacob will possess their possessions.

18 The house of Jacob will be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble. They will burn among them, and devour them. There will not be any remaining to the house of Esau." Indeed, Yahweh has spoken.

19 Those of the South will possess the mountain of Esau, and those of the lowland, the Philistines. They will possess the field of Ephraim, and the field of Samaria. Benjamin will possess Gilead.

20 The captives of this army of the children of Israel, who are among the Canaanites, will possess even to Zarephath; and the captives of Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad, will possess the cities of the Negev.

21 Saviors will go up on Mount Zion to judge the mountains of Esau, and the kingdom will be Yahweh's.

Commentary

 

Stubble

  

'To be consumed as stubble' denotes total vastation.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 8285)

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #10146

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10146. 'Before Jehovah' means from the Lord. This is clear from the consideration that 'Jehovah' in the Word is the Lord, see the places referred to in 9373. From the Lord is meant by 'before Jehovah' because 'before' means presence, and the Lord is present to the extent that good which belongs to love and truth which belongs to faith are received from Him. Consequently before the Lord means from the Lord. The Lord, it is true, is present with every individual person, yet the way in which He is present with the good is different from the way in which He is present with the evil. In the case of the good He is present in every detail of their thought springing from the truths of faith and in every detail of their desires springing from the good of love. He is present in such a way that He Himself constitutes their faith and He Himself constitutes their love. Therefore He is so to speak a resident within them, in keeping with the Lord's own words in John,

The Spirit of truth will remain with you and will be in you. And you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and does them, he it is who loves Me. We will come to him and make Our home with him. John 14:17-18, 20-21, 23.

[2] But in the case of those who are evil the Lord is not present in every detail, because they have no faith or charity. He is present in a general way, and this presence gives them the ability to think and will, and also to receive faith and charity so far as they refrain from evils. But so far as they do not refrain from them He seems to be absent. How far absent He seems to be depends on how far the truth and good of faith and love are absent. So it is that those in heaven experience His presence, and those in hell experience His absence.

[3] But the reality of the situation is not that the Lord is absent from man, rather that man is absent from the Lord. For a person ruled by evils looks backwards, away from Him, and the things then before his eyes are present within him according to their affinity with the evils that rule him. For in the next life space does not exist, only the appearance of space that accords with the network of thoughts and affections in a person. The situation in all this is just like that of the presence of the worldly sun so far as light and heat are concerned. The sun is equally present during every time and season; but when the planet turns away from the sun, the light fades and darkness descends, first the darkness of evening, then the darkness of night. And when the earth is not directly in line with the sun but at an angle, as happens in wintertime, the heat departs and cold sets in, as a consequence of which all things in the ground become inactive and die off. This too is called an absence of the sun, when in fact it is an absence of the planet from the sun, not spatially but so far as the conditions of light and heat are concerned. These phenomena have been mentioned to help to illustrate the matter.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.