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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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #4117

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4117. 'And he set his face towards mount Gilead' means good within it. This is clear from the meaning of 'mount' as the celestial element of love, which is good, dealt with in 795, 1430, to which the good meant by 'Jacob' was joined - 'Gilead' meaning the essential nature of it. Since the river was the boundary and, as has been stated, meant the first phase of the joining together, 'mount Gilead', which lay in this part away from the Jordan, means the good involved in that first stage of the joining together.

[2] The land of Gilead where the mountain was situated lay within the confines of the land of Canaan understood in a wide sense. It was situated on this side of the Jordan, and was granted as an inheritance to the Reubenites and the Gadites, and in particular to the half-tribe of Manasseh. And since the inheritances stretched out that far, it is said that it was situated within the confines of the land of Canaan understood in a wide sense. The fact that this territory was granted as an inheritance to those tribes is clear in Moses, Numbers 32:1, 26-41; Deuteronomy 3:8, 10-16; Joshua 13:24-31. For this reason when the land of Canaan was envisaged in its entirety it was said to stretch from Gilead even to Dan, and in another sense from Beersheba even to Dan, for Dan also was a boundary, 1710, 3923. Regarding its stretching from Beersheba even to Dan, see 2858, 2859; and reference to its doing so from Gilead to Dan occurs in Moses,

Moses went up from the plains of Moab onto mount Nebo, the top of Pisgah, which is in the direction of Jericho. There Jehovah showed him the whole land, Gilead even to Dan. Deuteronomy 34:1.

And in the Book of Judges,

Gilead dwelling at the crossing of the Jordan; and Dan, why will he fear ships? Judges 5:17.

[3] Because it was a boundary, 'Gilead' in the spiritual sense means the good that comes first, which is that of the bodily senses, for it is the good or delight of the senses that a person who is being regenerated is introduced into first of all. This is the sense in which 'Gilead' is taken in the Prophets, as in Jeremiah 8:22; 22:6; 46:11; 50:19; Ezekiel 47:18; Obad. verse 19; Micah 7:14; Zechariah 10:10; Psalms 60:7; and in the contrary sense, in Hosea 6:8; 12:11.

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