Obadiah 1:17 - Exposition

Upon Mount Zion. Once desecrated by the idolatrous revelry of the Edomites and the other nations, now the seat of Jehovah ( Joel 3:17 ) and the kingdom. Deliverance ( peletah ); Septuagint, σωτηρία . Abstract for concrete, and to be rendered, "those that escape," or "those that are saved;" i.e. a remnant that shall escape destruction (comp. Joel 2:32 ; Amos 9:8 ). There shall be holiness; rather, it (Mount Zion) shall be holy; so Septuagint, καὶ ἔσται ἄγιον : Hebrew, kodesh, "a sanctuary," where the heathen shall not come ( Isaiah 52:1 ; comp. Joel 3:17 [4:17, Hebrew]; Revelation 21:27 ). The house of Jacob. Judah and Benjamin, the holy seed, in whom the kingdom of the Lord should be established (comp. Obadiah 1:18 ). The northern kingdom is not mentioned. Shall possess their possessions; Septuagint, κατακληρονομήσουσιν ὁ οἶκος ἰακὼβ τοὺς κατακληρονομὴσουσιν ὁ αὐτούς , "The house of Jacob shall take for an inheritance those who took them for an inheritance;" Vulgate, Possidebit domus Jacob eos qui se possederant. These versions must have used a different punctuation from that of the Masoretic text— morishehem for morashehom (comp. Numbers 24:18 , Numbers 24:19 ). The Hebrew pronoun is ambiguous, and "their possessions" may mean either those that the Jews themselves had lost, or those of the Edomites. But nothing is said of Israel being carried away captive and losing its country; and, though the prophet may have looked forward to such a catastrophe and to a future restoration, thin is not the subject here. The possessions referred to are those of the enemy represented by the Edomites, and those which the Jews had lost since the days of David and Solomon; and "the house of Jacob" signifies, not merely the earthly kingdom of Judah, but "the people of God, who are eventually to obtain the dominion of the world" (Keil); Mark 16:15 .