Week 26 Obadiah
Obadiah didn’t prophesy to Israel. His prophecy was to the country of Edom (one of Israel’s National Enemies). A couple of connected ideas caught my attention.
#1: Obadiah told Edom: as you have done to Israel, so it will be done to you. So…what Edom had done to Israel would happen to Edom. Their violence would boomerang.
The exact details would play out a bit differently for Edom but the general contours of the outcome – the main things – would be the same: just as you swallowed Israel…you will swallow the punishment I pour out on you. From their perspective I don’t figure Edom had taken intentional steps to map out their own defeat. They just wanted Israel to get thrashed. Edom wasn’t trying – like Obadiah put it – to disappear from history, as though they had never even existed. But Obadiah was insistent that that would be the outcome.
#2: Obadiah told Edom: all your evil deeds will fall back on your own heads. The way he describes it it’s almost like Edom threw their evil deeds up in the air and – surprisingly & almost magically – their evils stayed airborne. Defied gravity. Hanging up there while Edom’s gloating plundering destructive intentions succeeded.
Obadiah’s bad news was that evil can’t stay aloft forever. Eventually Edom’s evils would lose their flotative witchery. Evil was coming back down onto Edom’s heads. Evil was coming home.
Note: quotes from Obadiah 15 16 (NLT)