7 About Edom. This is what the Lord of armies has said. Is there no more wisdom in Teman? have wise suggestions come to an end among men of good sense? has their wisdom completely gone?
These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Edom, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because his sword was turned against his brother, without pity, and his wrath was burning at all times, and he was angry for ever. And I will send a fire on Teman, burning up the great houses of Bozrah.
For this cause give ear to the decision of the Lord which he has made against Edom, and to his purposes designed against the people of Teman: Truly, they will be pulled away by the smallest of the flock; truly, he will make waste their fields with them.
These were the chiefs among the sons of Esau: the sons of Eliphaz, Esau's first son: Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz,
The sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz.
This is what the Lord has said: Because Edom has taken his payment from the people of Judah, and has done great wrong in taking payment from them; The Lord has said, My hand will be stretched out against Edom, cutting off from it man and beast: and I will make it waste, from Teman even as far as Dedan they will be put to the sword. I will take payment from Edom because of my people Israel; and I will take Edom in hand in my wrath and in my passion: and they will have experience of my reward, says the Lord.
And Job's three friends had word of all this evil which had come on him. And they came every one from his place, Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. So they came together to a meeting-place, in order that they might go and make clear to Job their grief for him, and give him comfort.
See, I will send and take all the families of the north, says the Lord, and Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, my servant, and make them come against this land, and against its people, and against all these nations on every side; and I will give them up to complete destruction, and make them a cause of fear and surprise and a waste place for ever.
Seeming to be wise, they were in fact foolish, And by them the glory of the eternal God was changed and made into the image of man who is not eternal, and of birds and beasts and things which go on the earth.
And Esau was hated, and I sent destruction on his mountains, and gave his heritage to the beasts of the waste land. Though Edom says, We are crushed down but we will come back, building up the waste places; this is what the Lord of armies has said: They may put up buildings, but I will have them pulled down; and they will be named The land of evil-doing, and The people against whom the Lord keeps his wrath for ever.
The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Lord has said about Edom: We have had word from the Lord, and a representative has been sent among the nations, saying, Up! and let us make war against her. See, I have made you small among the nations: you are much looked down on. You have been tricked by the pride of your heart, O you whose living-place is in the cracks of the rock, whose house is high up; who has said in his heart, Who will make me come down to earth? Though you go up on high like an eagle, though your house is placed among the stars, I will make you come down from there, says the Lord. If thieves came, attacking you by night, (how are you cut off!) would they not go on taking till they had enough? if men came cutting your grapes would they take them all? How are the things of Esau searched out! how are his secret stores looked for! All the men who were united with you have been false to you, driving you out to the edge of the land: the men who were at peace with you have overcome you; they have taken their heritage in your place. Will I not, in that day, says the Lord, take away the wise men out of Edom, and wisdom out of the mountain of Esau? And your men of war, O Teman, will be overcome with fear, so that every one of them may be cut off from the mountain of Esau. Because you were the cause of violent death and because of your cruel behaviour to your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame and will be cut off for ever. Because you were there watching when men from other lands took away his goods, and strange men came into his doors, and put the fate of Jerusalem to the decision of chance; you were like one of them. Do not see with pleasure your brother's evil day, the day of his fate, and do not be glad over the children of Judah on the day of their destruction, or make wide your mouth on the day of trouble. Do not go into the doors of my people on the day of their downfall; do not be looking on their trouble with pleasure on the day of their downfall, or put your hands on their goods on the day of their downfall. And do not take your place at the cross-roads, cutting off those of his people who get away; and do not give up to their haters those who are still there in the day of trouble. For the day of the Lord is coming quickly on all nations: as you have done it will be done to you; the reward of your acts will come on your head. For as you have been drinking on my holy mountain, so will all the nations go on drinking without end; they will go on drinking and the wine will go down their throats, and they will be as if they had never been. But in Mount Zion some will be kept safe, and it will be holy; and the children of Jacob will take their heritage. And the children of Jacob will be a fire and those of Joseph a flame, and the children of Esau dry stems of grass, burned up by them till all is gone: and there will be no people living in Esau; for the Lord has said it. And they will take the South, and the lowland, and the country of Ephraim, and Gilead, as their heritage. And those of the children of Israel who were the first to be taken away as prisoners, will have their heritage among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath; and those who were taken away from Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad, will have the towns of the South. And those who have been kept safe will come up from Mount Zion to be judges of the mountain of Esau; and the kingdom will be the Lord's.
Masses on masses in the valley of decision! for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.
Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, let your face be turned to Mount Seir, and be a prophet against it, And say to it, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am against you, O Mount Seir, and my hand will be stretched out against you, and I will make you a waste and a cause for wonder. I will make your towns unpeopled and you will be a waste; and you will be certain that I am the Lord. Because yours has been a hate without end, and you have given up the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their trouble, in the time of the punishment of the end: For this cause, by my life, says the Lord, because you have been sinning through blood, blood will come after you. And I will make Mount Seir a cause for wonder and a waste, cutting off from it all comings and goings. I will make his mountains full of those who have been put to death; in your valleys and in all your water-streams men will be falling by the sword. I will make you waste for ever, and your towns will be unpeopled: and you will be certain that I am the Lord. Because you have said, The two nations and the two countries are to be mine, and we will take them for our heritage; though the Lord was there: For this cause, by my life, says the Lord, I will do to you as you have done in your wrath and in your envy, which you have made clear in your hate for them; and I will make clear to you who I am when you are judged by me. And you will see that I the Lord have had knowledge of all the bitter things which you have said against the mountains of Israel, saying, They have been made waste, they are given to us to take for our heritage. And you have made yourselves great against me with your mouths, increasing your words against me; and it has come to my ears. This is what the Lord has said: Because you were glad over my land when it was a waste, so will I do to you: You will become a waste, O Mount Seir, and all Edom, even all of it: and you will be certain that I am the Lord.
So Esau was full of hate for Jacob because of his father's blessing; and he said in his heart, The days of weeping for my father are near; then I will put my brother Jacob to death.
Then they said, Come, let us make a design against Jeremiah; for teaching will never be cut off from the priest, or wisdom from the wise, or the word from the prophet. Come, let us make use of his words for an attack on him, and let us give attention with care to what he says.
Who is this who comes from Edom, with blood-red robes from Bozrah? he whose clothing is fair, stepping with pride in his great strength? I whose glory is in the right, strong for salvation. Why is your clothing red, and why are your robes like those of one who is crushing the grapes? I have been crushing the grapes by myself, and of the peoples there was no man with me: in my wrath and in my passion, they were crushed under my feet; and my robes are marked with their life-blood, and all my clothing is red. For the day of punishment is in my heart, and the year for the payment of the price for my people has come. And I saw that there was no helper, and I was wondering that no one gave them support: so my arm did the work of salvation, and my wrath was my support. And in my passion the peoples were crushed under my feet, and broken in my wrath, and I put down their strength to the earth.
Come near, you nations, and give ear; take note, you peoples: let the earth and everything in it give ear; the world and all those living in it. For the Lord is angry with all the nations, and his wrath is burning against all their armies: he has put them to the curse, he has given them to destruction. Their dead bodies will be thick on the face of the earth, and their smell will come up, and the mountains will be flowing with their blood, and all the hills will come to nothing. And the heavens will be rolled together like the roll of a book: and all their army will be gone, like a dead leaf from the vine, or a dry fruit from the fig-tree. For my sword in heaven is full of wrath: see, it is coming down on Edom, in punishment on the people of my curse. The sword of the Lord is full of blood, it is fat with the best of the meat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the best parts of the sheep: for the Lord has a feast in Bozrah, and much cattle will be put to death in the land of Edom. And the strong oxen will go down to death together with the smaller cattle. For it is the day of the Lord's punishment, when he gives payment for the wrongs done to Zion. And its streams will be turned into boiling oil, and its dust into burning stone, and all the land will be on fire. It will not be put out day or night; its smoke will go up for ever: it will be waste from generation to generation; no one will go through it for ever. But the birds of the waste land will have their place there; it will be a heritage for the bittern and the raven: and it will be measured out with line and weight as a waste land. The jackals will be there, and her great ones will be gone; they will say, There is no longer a kingdom there, and all her chiefs will have come to an end. And thorns will come up in her fair houses, and waste plants in her strong towers: and foxes will make their holes there, and it will be a meeting-place for ostriches. And the beasts of the waste places will come together with the jackals, and the evil spirits will be crying to one another, even the night-spirit will come and make her resting-place there. The arrowsnake will make her hole and put her eggs there, and get her young together under her shade: there the hawks will come together by twos. See what is recorded in the book of the Lord: all these will be there, not one without the other: the mouth of the Lord has given the order, and his spirit has made them come together. And he has given them their heritage, and by his hand it has been measured out to them: it will be theirs for ever, their resting-place from generation to generation.
The chiefs of Zoan are completely foolish; the wisest guides of Pharaoh have become like beasts: how do you say to Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the offspring of early kings? Where, then, are your wise men? let them make clear to you, let them give you knowledge of the purpose of the Lord of armies for Egypt. The chiefs of Zoan have become foolish, the chiefs of Noph are tricked, the heads of her tribes are the cause of Egypt's wandering out of the way.
O Lord, keep in mind against the children of Edom the day of Jerusalem; how they said, Let it be uncovered, uncovered even to its base.
They have said, Come, let us put an end to them as a nation; so that the name of Israel may go out of man's memory. For they have all come to an agreement; they are all joined together against you: The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab and the Hagarites; Gebal and Ammon and Amalek; the Philistines and the people of Tyre; Assur is joined with them; they have become the support of the children of Lot. (Selah.) Do to them what you did to the Midianites; what you did to Sisera and Jabin, at the stream of Kishon: Who came to destruction at En-dor; their bodies became dust and waste.
Who makes the designs of the wise go wrong, so that they are unable to give effect to their purposes. He takes the wise in their secret designs, and the purposes of the twisted are cut off suddenly. In the daytime it becomes dark for them, and in the sunlight they go feeling about as if it was night.
But have no hate for an Edomite, because he is your brother, or for an Egyptian, for you were living in his land.
I see him, but not now: looking on him, but not near: a star will come out of Jacob, and a rod of authority out of Israel, sending destruction to the farthest limits of Moab and on the head of all the sons of Sheth. Edom will be his heritage, and he will put an end to the last of the people of Seir.
Then Moses sent men from Kadesh to the king of Edom to say to him, Your brother Israel says, You have knowledge of all the things we have been through; How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we were living in Egypt for a long time; and the Egyptians were cruel to us and to our fathers: And the Lord gave ear to the voice of our cry, and sent an angel and took us out of Egypt: and now we are in Kadesh, a town on the edge of your land; Let us now go through your land: we will not go into field or vine-garden, or take the water of the springs; we will go by the highway, not turning to the right or to the left, till we have gone past the limits of your land. And Edom said, You are not to go through my land, for if you do I will come out against you with the sword. And the children of Israel said to him, We will go up by the highway: and if we or our cattle take of your water, we will give you a price for it: only let us go through on our feet, nothing more. But he said, You are not to go through. And Edom came out against them in his strength, with a great army. So Edom would not let Israel go through his land; and Israel went in another direction.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 49
Commentary on Jeremiah 49 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Concerning Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar, Hazor, Elam
Concerning the Children of Ammon. - The Ammonites were, not merely as regards descent, but also as to their character and their relation to Israel, the twin-people with the Moabites. From them, too, as well as from the Moabites, Sihon the king of the Ammonites had wrenched a portion of their territory, which the Israelites received for a possession after Sihon had been subdued. This territory they sought every opportunity of retaking from the Israelites, whom they as constantly endeavoured to humiliate when they could. Besides their connection with Eglon the Moabite king (Judges 3:13), they oppressed Israel during the period of the judges for eighteen years, not only in Gilead, but also on this side of Jordan, since they fought against Ephraim, Benjamin, and Judah ( Judges 10:7., Jeremiah 11:12 -32). During Samuel's time, their king Nahash besieged Jabesh-gilead, and demanded the surrender of the city under shameful conditions, in consequence of which they were defeated by Saul (1 Sam 2). During the time of David they disgracefully treated his ambassadors, who had come to comfort King Hanun over the death of his father; they then united with the Syrians against Israel, but were defeated by Joab, and, after the taking of their capital, Rabbah, severely chastised (2 Samuel 10:1 to 2 Samuel 11:1, and 2 Samuel 12:26-31). Under the reign of Jehoshaphat, also, in company with the Moabites, they invaded Judah (2 Chron 20); and when, later, the Israelites were heavily oppressed by the Syrians under Hazael, the Ammonites practised cruelties on them in Gilead, for which the prophet Amos (Amos 1:13-15) threatens them with devastation of their country and foreign captivity. After the death of Jeroboam II, who had restored the borders of Israel as far as the Dead Sea (2 Kings 14:25), the Ammonites must have made fresh attempts to enlarge their territory during the interregnum that had begun in the kingdom of the ten tribes; for it is mentioned in 2 Chronicles 26:8 that they brought presents to King Uzziah, i.e., paid tribute, and had thus been rendered tributary to him: it is also stated in 2 Chronicles 27:5 that his son Jotham marched against them in order to enforce the payment of the tribute. But when, soon afterwards, Tiglath-pileser the Assyrian carried away the tribes of Israel on the east of the Jordan (2 Kings 15:29; 1 Chronicles 5:26), the Ammonites seized possession of the depopulated country of the tribes of Gad and Reuben, while they also seized Heshbon on the border of these two tribal territories. This unjust appropriation of Israelitish territory forms the starting-point of the prophecy now before us.
Ammon has taken possession of the inheritance of Gad, therefore must his cities be destroyed by war, that Israel may again obtain his own property (Jeremiah 49:1, Jeremiah 49:2). Ammon will sorrow deeply, for his god will go with his princes into captivity (Jeremiah 49:2-4). His trust in the wealth of his land will not help him, but his people will be frightened away through terror on every side, yet they will be restored in the future (Jeremiah 49:5, Jeremiah 49:6).
"Concerning the children of Ammon, thus saith Jahveh: Hath Israel no sons, or hath he no heir? Why doth their king inherit Gad, and his people dwell in his cities? Jeremiah 49:2. Therefore, behold, days are coming, saith Jahveh, when I will cause to be heard against Rabbah of the children of Ammon a war-cry; and it shall become a heap of ruins, and her daughters shall be burned with fire: and Israel shall heir those who heired him, saith Jahveh. Jeremiah 49:3. Howl, O Heshbon! for Ai is laid waste. Cry! ye daughters of Rabbah, gird yourselves with sackcloth; lament, and run up and down among the enclosures: for their king shall go into captivity, his priests and his princes together. Jeremiah 49:4. Why dost thou glory in the valleys? Thy valley flows away, O thou rebellious daughter, that trusted in her treasures, [saying], Who shall come to me? Jeremiah 49:5. Behold, I will bring a fear upon thee, saith the Lord Jahveh of hosts, from all that is round thee; and ye shall be driven each one before him, and there shall be none to gather together the fugitives. Jeremiah 49:6. But afterwards I will turn the captivity of the children of Ammon, saith Jahveh."