Obadiah 1:10

"For the violence done to thy brother Jacob, shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off forever."

(See the comments under the preceding verse.) Here the reason for God's severe judgment is emphatically announced. It was not because of some single act of passion, but for an entire history of hatred and opposition to God's purpose. They had refused to allow the Israelites passage through their territory into the promised land in the times of Moses (Numbers 20:14-21). They warred against Saul (1 Samuel 14:47); David conquered them and established military garrisons in their land. Solomon controlled their territory when he made Ezion-geber the seaport from which his ships sailed to Ophir (2 Chronicles 8:17,18), but they rebelled in the times of Jehoram (about the time the Book of Obadiah was written, namely, 847 B.C.). Fifty years later, Amaziah, king of Judah, was fighting the Edomites (2 Kings 14:7). When Jerusalem was destroyed, an event which the Edomites evidently participated in, it was but a short time until Nebuchadnezzar also subjugated them, along with the Moabites and Ammonites. Under the Persian empire, the country of the Edomites became a province called Idumea, and many of the Idumeans became prominent in later Jewish history, Herod the Great being an Idumean. It does not appear that any redeeming spirituality ever marked any of the entire race. All the Herods were Idumeans.