Malachi 1:5

Observing Yahweh’s dealings with Edom, the Israelites would learn of His love for her and His greatness that extended beyond Israel (cf. Malachi 1:11; Malachi 1:14; Malachi 3:12; Malachi 4:6). They would eventually call on other people to appreciate Him too.

"While Edom does not have the most space devoted to prophecies against it in total number of verses (Egypt has that honor, thanks to Ezekiel), it has the widest distribution among the prophetic books. From Isaiah 34 in particular it is clear that Edom can be used by the prophets to stand as a synecdoche for ’all the nations’ (Isaiah 34:2)." [Note: Ibid., pp. 1281-82. For a list of oracles against foreign nations in the Prophets, see ibid., p. 1281.]

The point of this section was to get the Jews of the restoration community, who were thinking that God had abandoned them and forgotten His promises to them, to think again. Even though they seemed to be experiencing the same fate as their ancient enemy, the Edomites, God would restore them because He had entered into covenant relationship with them. He would keep His promises, both to the Israelites and to the Edomites, for better and for worse respectively. This reminder of the Lord’s love provided positive motivation for the priests to return to the Lord, and it should have the same effect on all God’s people who read these verses.