Obaja 1:6-9

1:6 How the people of Esau ¹  will be thoroughly plundered! ² 

Their ³  hidden valuables will be ransacked! ⁴ 

1:7 All your allies ⁵  will force ⁶  you from your homeland! ⁷ 

Your treaty partners ⁸  will deceive you and overpower you.

Your trusted friends ⁹  will set an ambush ¹⁰  for ¹¹  you

that will take you by surprise! ¹² 

1:8 At that time,” ¹³  the Lord says,

“I will destroy the wise sages of Edom! ¹⁴ 

the advisers ¹⁵  from Esau’s mountain! ¹⁶ 

1:9 Your warriors will be shattered, O Teman, ¹⁷ 

so that ¹⁸  everyone ¹⁹  will be destroyed ²⁰  from Esau’s mountain!

[1:6]  ¹ tn Heb “Esau.” The name Esau here is a synecdoche of part for whole referring to the Edomites. Cf. “Jacob” in v. 10, where the meaning is “Israelites.”

[1:6]  ² tn Heb “How Esau will be searched!”; NAB “How they search Esau.” The Hebrew verb חָפַשׂ (khafas, “to search out”) is used metonymically here for plundering the hidden valuables of a conquered people (e.g., 1 Kgs 20:6).

[1:6]  ³ tn Heb “his” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); this is singular agreeing with “Esau” in the previous line.

[1:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “searched out” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “pillaged”; TEV “looted”; NLT “found and taken.” This pictures the violent action of conquering warriors ransacking the city in order to loot and plunder its valuables.

[1:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “All the men of your covenant”; KJV, ASV “the men of thy confederacy.” In Hebrew “they will send you unto the border” and “all the men of your covenant” appear in two separate poetic lines (cf. NAB “To the border they drive you – all your allies”). Since the second is a noun clause functioning as the subject of the first clause, the two are rendered as a single sentence in the translation.

[1:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “send”; NASB “send you forth”; NAB “drive”; NIV “force.”

[1:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “to the border” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[1:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “the men of your peace.” This expression refers to a political/military alliance or covenant of friendship.

[1:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “your bread,” which makes little sense in the context. The Hebrew word can be revocalized to read “those who eat bread with you,” i.e., “your friends.” Cf. KJV “they that eat thy bread”; NIV “those who eat your bread”; TEV “Those friends who ate with you.”

[1:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “set a trap” (so NIV, NRSV). The meaning of the Hebrew word מָזוֹר (mazor; here translated “ambush”) is uncertain; it occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. The word probably refers to something “spread out” for purposes of entrapment, such as a net. Other possibilities include “trap,” “fetter,” or “stumbling block.”

[1:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “beneath” (so NAB).

[1:7]  ¹² tn Heb “there is no understanding in him.”

[1:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV, NIV); NAB, NASB, NRSV “on that day.”

[1:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Will I not destroy those who are wise from Edom?” The rhetorical question functions as an emphatic affirmation. For the sake of clarity this has been represented by the emphatic indicative in the translation.

[1:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “understanding”; NIV “men of understanding.” This undoubtedly refers to members of the royal court who offered political and military advice to the Edomite kings. In the ancient Near East, such men of wisdom were often associated with divination and occultic practices (cf. Isa 3:3, 47:10, 13). The Edomites were also renown in the ancient Near East as a center of traditional sagacity and wisdom; perhaps that is referred to here (cf. Jer 49:7).

[1:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and understanding from the mountain of Esau.” The phrase “I will remove the men of…” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness. Here “understanding” is a synecdoche of part for whole; the faculty of understanding is put for the wise men who possess it.

[1:9]  ¹⁷ sn Teman, like Sela, was a prominent city of Edom. The name Teman is derived from the name of a grandson of Esau (cf. Gen 36:11). Here it is a synecdoche of part for whole, standing for all of Edom.

[1:9]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew word used here (לְמַעַן, lÿma’an) usually expresses purpose. The sense in this context, however, is more likely that of result.

[1:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “a man,” meaning “every single person” here; cf. KJV “every one.”

[1:9]  ²⁰ tn Heb “cut off” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NIV, NLT “cut down”; CEV “wiped out.”