8Shall not the earth shake for this
And all that dwell on it mourn?
Shall it not all rise like the Nile
And surge and subside like the Nile of Egypt?
9And in that day
—declares my Lord GOD—
I will make the sun set at noon,
I will darken the earth on a sunny day.
10I will turn your festivals into mourning
And all your songs into dirges;
I will put sackcloth on all loins
And tonsures on every head.
I will make itf mourn as for an only child,
Allg of it as on a bitter day.
11A time is coming—declares my Lord GOD—when I will send a famine upon the land: not a hunger for bread or a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the LORD. 12Men shall wander from h-sea to sea-h and from north to east to seek the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.
13In that day, the beautiful maidens and the young men shall faint with thirst—
14Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria,
Saying, “As your god lives, Dan,”i
And “As the way to Beer-sheba lives”j—
They shall fall to rise no more.
9 I saw my LORD standing by the altar, and He said: a-Strike the capitals so that the thresholds quake, and make an end of the first of them all.-a And I will slay the last of them with the sword; not one of them shall escape, and not one of them shall survive.
2If they burrow down to Sheol,
From there My hand shall take them;
And if they ascend to heaven,
From there I will bring them down.
3If they hide on the top of Carmel,
There I will search them out and seize them;
And if they conceal themselves from My sight
At the bottom of the sea,
There I will command
The serpent to bite them.
4And if they go into captivity
Before their enemies,
There I will command
The sword to slay them.
I will fix My eye on them for evil
And not for good.
5It is my Lord the GOD of Hosts
At whose touch the earth trembles
And all who dwell on it mourn,
And all of it swells like the Nile
And subsides like the Nile of Egypt;
6Who built His chambers in heaven
And founded His vault on the earth,
Who summons the waters of the sea
And pours them over the land—
His name is the LORD.
7To Me, O Israelites, you are
Just like the Ethiopians
— declares the LORD.
True, I brought Israel up
From the land of Egypt,
But also the Philistines from Caphtor
And the Arameans from Kir.
8Behold, the Lord GOD has His eye
Upon the sinful kingdom:
I will wipe it off
The face of the earth!
But, I will not wholly wipe out
The House of Jacob
— declares the LORD.
9For I will give the order
And shake the House of Israel—
Through all the nations—
As one shakes [sand] in a sieve,b
And not a pebble falls to the ground.
10All the sinners of My people
Shall perish by the sword,
Who boast,
“Never shall the evil
Overtake us or come near us.”
11In that day,
I will set up again the fallen booth of David:
I will mend its breaches and set up its ruins anew.
I will build it firm as in the days of old,
12c-So that they shall possess the rest of Edom
And all the nations once attached to My name-c
—declares the LORD who will bring this to pass.
13A time is coming
—declares the LORD—
When the plowman shall meet the reaper,d
And the treader of grapes
Him who holds the [bag of] seed;
When the mountains shall drip wine
And all the hills shall wave [with grain].
14I will restore My people Israel.
They shall rebuild ruined cities and inhabit them;
They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine;
They shall till gardens and eat their fruits.
15And I will plant them upon their soil,
Nevermore to be uprooted
From the soil I have given them
—said the LORD your God.
a See Zech. 14.5.
b I.e, the decree of punishment.
c Cf. Lam. 1.13.
d Cf. 2 Kings 13.22–25.
e I.e., they cooperated in the annexation of Israelite territory; cf. Jer. 13.19 with note.
f Emendation yields “Aram”; cf. Isa. 9.11.
g Emendation yields “Aram.”
h Cf. I Kings 5.26; 9.12–13.
i Cf. Akkadian shamaru and Jer. 3.5.
a-a Understanding sho’afim as equivalent to shafim. Emendation yields: “Who crush on the ground / The heads of the poor, / And push off the road / The humble of the land”; cf. Job 24.4.
b-b Meaning of verse uncertain; alternatively: “I will slow your movements / As a threshing sledge (cf. Isa. 28.27–28) is slowed / When clogged by cut grain.”
c Lit. “naked.”
a Septuagint reads “Assyria.”
b Heb. plural; but cf. 4.1; 6.1.
c Meaning of Heb. uncertain.
d Heb. plural, but cf. “altar” in next line.
a Heb. “their.”
b-b Meaning of Heb. uncertain.
c Cf. Lev. 7.12–14; where, however, the bread is not to be burned.
d Alluding to the plagues at the time of the Exodus.
e-e Emendation yields “Because you are acting thus toward Me.”
f Cf. Joel 2.2. Emendation yields “darkness”; cf. 5.8.
a I.e., into Judah; cf. 1 Kings 19.3.
b-b Meaning of Heb. uncertain.
c Septuagint reads “the House of Israel.”
d Vv. 26–27 would read well after 6.14.
e Two Akkadian names applied to Saturn, here deliberately pointed with the vowels of Heb. shiqqus, “detestable thing.”
f I.e., who is Lord of all the astral bodies.
a Emendation yields “Joseph,” cf. v. 6, and 5.6, 15, where “Joseph” denotes the northern kingdom.
b-b Taking ba l- as synonymous with ba ‘ad; see Isa. 45.24 and note i-i.
c-c Emendation yields “Or is your territory larger than theirs?”
d-d Meaning of Heb. uncertain.
e-e A poetic designation of the northern kingdom.
f-f Meaning of Heb. uncertain; emendation yields “Can one plow the sea with oxen?”
g Two towns east of the Jordan recovered for Israel by Jeroboam II (see 2 Kings 14.25). For Lo- dabar, cf. 2 Sam. 9.4, 5; 17.27; for Karnaim, cf. Gen. 14.5.
a-a Meaning of Heb. uncertain. The king’s reaping of fodder apparently occurred near the end of the rainy season, and whatever the locust destroyed after that could not be replaced for another year.
b-b Emendation yields “flaming.”
c-c Or “destined for the pickax”; meaning of Heb. uncertain.
d Or “pickax”; meaning of Heb. uncertain.
e-e Lit. “eat bread.”
f I.e., by profession.
g Meaning of Heb. uncertain; emendation yields “sheep breeder”; cf. the next verse and 1.1.
h-h Emendation yields “be ravished”; cf. Lam. 5.11.
i Cf. Hos. 9.3 and note.
a Heb. qayis, lit. “summer fruit.”
b-b Heb. qes.
c-c Emendation yields “who on every new moon devour the needy, and on every sabbath the humble of the land”; cf. v. 5.
d-d Giving short measures of grain, but using oversize weights for the silver received in payment.
e Or “concerning”; cf. 6.8 with note.
f I.e., the earth; cf. vv. 8 and 9d.
g Lit. “the end.”
h-h Emendation yields “south to west.”
i See I Kings 12.28–29.
j See 5.5 with note.
a-a Meaning of Heb. uncertain.
b A coarse sieve used for cleansing grain of straw and stones, or sand of pebbles and shells.
c-c I.e., the House of David shall reestablish its authority over the nations that were ruled by David.
d Cf. Lev. 26.5.
Obadiah
1 The prophecy of Obadiah.
We have received tidings from the LORD,
And an envoy has been sent out among the nations:
“Up! Let us rise up against her for battle.”
Thus said my Lord GOD concerning Edom:
2I will make you least among nations,
You shall be most despised.
3Your arrogant heart has seduced you,
You who dwell in clefts of the rock,
In your lofty abode.
You think in your heart,
“Who can pull me down to earth?”
4Should you nest as high as the eagle,
Should your eyrie be lodged ’mong the stars,
Even from there I will pull you down
—declares the LORD.
5If thieves were to come to you,
Marauders by night,
They would steal no more than they needed.
If vintagers came to you,
They would surely leave some gleanings.
How utterly you are destroyed!
6How thoroughly rifled is Esau,
How ransacked his hoards!
7All your allies turned you back
At the frontier;
Your own confederates
Have duped and overcome you;
[Those who ate] your bread
Have planted snares under you.
He is bereft of understanding.
8In that day
—declares the LORD—
I will make the wise vanish from Edom,
Understanding from Esau’s mount.
9Your warriors shall lose heart, O Teman,
And not a man on Esau’s mount
Shall survive the slaughter.
10For the outrage to your brother Jacob,
Disgrace shall engulf you,
And you shall perish forever.
11On that day when you stood aloof,
When aliens carried off his goods,
When foreigners entered his gates
And cast lots for Jerusalem,
You were as one of them.
12a-How could you-a gaze with glee
On your brother that day,
On his day of calamity!
How could you gloat
Over the people of Judah
On that day of ruin!
How could you loudly jeer
On a day of anguish!
13How could you enter the gate of My people
On its day of disaster,
Gaze in glee with the others
On its misfortune
On its day of disaster,
And lay hands on its wealth
On its day of disaster!
14How could you stand at the passesb
To cut down its fugitives!
How could you betray those who fled
On that day of anguish!
15As you did, so shall it be done to you;
Your conduct shall be requited.
Yea, against all nations
The day of the LORD is at hand.
16That same cup that youc drank on My Holy Mount
Shall all nations drink evermore,d
Drink till their speech grows thick,
And they become as though they had never been.
17But on Zion’s mount a remnant shall survive,
And it shall be holy.e
The House of Jacob shall dispossess
Those who dispossessed them.
18The House of Jacob shall be fire,
And the House of Joseph flame,
And the House of Esau shall be straw;
They shall burn it and devour it,
And no survivor shall be left of the House of Esau
—for the LORD has spoken.
19fThus they shall possess the Negeb and Mount Esau as well, the Shephelah and Philistia. They shall possess the Ephraimite country and the district of Samaria,g and Benjaminh along with Gilead. 20And that exiled force of Israelites [shall possess] what belongs to the Phoenicians as far as Zarephath,i while the Jerusalemite exile community of Sepharadj shall possess the towns of the Negeb. 21For
