Edom on the Cliffs

High on a cliff of red rock, a watchman looks down on the road below. Refugees are stumbling past, running from a burning city. He could help them. Instead, he laughs. And he blocks the road.

South and east of the Dead Sea lies a land of rugged mountains and red sandstone cliffs. In Bible times this was Edom. Its people were descended from Esau, the twin brother of Jacob. Jacob's descendants were Israel. So Israel and Edom were family, brother nations. But like Jacob and Esau, they were often at odds. Edom's towns were perched on high, rocky ground that was very hard to attack, and its people felt safe up there. Then, when Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, Edom did not help its brother. And a prophet named Obadiah received a vision about it. His book is the shortest in the Old Testament: just one chapter, twenty-one verses.

Obadiah begins with God's message straight to Edom's proud heart. “The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?” You think you're untouchable up there, God says. “Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD.” Edom had trusted in its cliffs, its wise men, its allies. But Obadiah says even its friends would turn against it, and its famous wisdom would fail.

Then God says why. Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you. On the day strangers carried off Jerusalem's wealth, and foreigners came in through its gates, “even thou wast as one of them.” And then a list of things Edom should never have done, like a parent telling a child exactly where they went wrong. You should not have looked down on your brother on the day of his disaster. You should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah on the day they were destroyed. You should not have bragged on the day of their distress. You should not have marched through my people's gate and grabbed their belongings. And you should not have stood at the crossroads to catch those who were escaping, and handed them over to the enemy.

Then Obadiah warns about a principle we all know in our bones. “As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee.” What you did to others will come back on your own head. The day of the Lord is near for all the nations, not just Edom. But the book doesn't end with Edom's fall. It ends with hope for God's people. On Mount Zion there will be those who escape, and it will be holy. God's scattered people will come home and possess their land again. And the very last words of the book look beyond all the nations and their quarrels: “And the kingdom shall be the LORD'S.” Not Edom's. Not Babylon's. Not even Israel's. God's.

What became of Edom? In the centuries after the exile, the kingdom of Edom disappeared, and Arab peoples called the Nabataeans took over its mountain land. Many Edomites moved west into the south of Judah, an area that came to be called Idumea. The Jewish historian Josephus records that King Herod the Great's family came from Idumea. So in Jesus' day, a descendant of Esau's land sat on the throne in Jerusalem.

You'll find this vision in the book of Obadiah, all twenty-one verses. A proud nation on the cliffs that gloated over its brother's fall, and a God whose kingdom outlasts them all. So here is a question to carry with you. When someone you know is having a hard time, even someone you don't get on with, how could you help instead of standing by?