Obadiah 1:18 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Obadiah 1:18
And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the LORD hath spoken it.
to flame (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural
devour
וַאֲכָל֑וּםva.'a.kha.Lum
H398
to eat (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
remaining
שָׂרִיד֙sa.Rid
H8300
a survivor · noun, common masculine singular absolute
house
לְבֵ֣יתle.Veit
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
Esau
עֵשָׂ֔ו'e.Sav
H6215
Esav · proper noun, a place name
LORD
יְהוָ֖הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
spoken
דִּבֵּֽרdi.Ber
H1696
perhaps properly · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Zechariah 12:6 In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall de…
Isaiah 10:17 And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day…
Ezekiel 37:19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel h…
Micah 5:8 And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion a…
Isaiah 5:24 Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shal…
2 Samuel 19:20 For thy servant doth know that I have sinned: therefore, behold, I am come the first this day of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet…
Psalms 83:6-15 The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
Isaiah 31:9 And he shall pass over to his strong hold for fear, and his princes shall be afraid of the ensign, saith the LORD, whose fire is in Zion, an…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Obadiah 1:17–end
After the destruction of the church's enemies is threatened, which will be completely accomplished in the great day of recompence, and that judgment for which Christ came once, and will come again, into this world, here follow precious promises of the salvation of the church, with which this prophecy concludes, and those of Joel and Amos did, which, however they might be in part fulfilled in the return of the Jews out of Babylon notwithstanding the triumphs of Edom in their captivity, as if it were perpetual, are yet, doubtless, to have their full accomplishment in that great salvation wrought out by Jesus Christ, to which all the prophets bore witness. It is promised here,
I. That there sha…
fire--See the same figure, ; ; .
house of Jacob . . . Joseph--that is, the two kingdoms, Judah and Ephraim or Israel [JEROME]. The two shall form one kingdom, their former feuds being laid aside (; ; ; ). The Jews returned with some of the Israelites from Babylon; and, under John Hyrcanus, so subdued and, compelling them to be circumcised, incorporated the Idumeans with themselves that they formed part of the nation [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 13.17; 12.11]. This was but an earnest of the future union of Israel and Judah in the possession of the enlarged land as one kingdom (, &c.).
stubble-- ().
Adam Clarke on Obadiah 1:18
The house of Jacob shall be a fire - After their return from captivity, the Jews, called here the house of Jacob and the house of Joseph, did break out as a flame upon the Idumeans; they reduced them into slavery; and obliged them to receive circumcision, and practise the rites of the Jewish religion. See 1 Maccabees 5:3, etc.; 2 Maccabees 10:15-23; and Josephus Antiq., lib. 13 c. 17.
There shall not be any remaining - As a people and a nation they shall be totally destroyed. This is the meaning; it does not signify that every individual shall be destroyed.
John Gill on Obadiah 1:18
And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame,.... The former may denote the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, the latter the ten tribes, which after the separation in Rehoboam's time were called Ephraim, and sometimes Joseph; though they may here signify one and the same, since all the tribes will be united, and become one people, at the time the prophecy refers to: the meaning is, that the people of Judah and Israel shall have strength and power to conquer and destroy their enemies, with as much ease, as flames of fire consume chaff or stubble, or any such combustible matter they light upon, as it follows:
and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle…
The Church Fathers
The prosperity of Israel was made manifest as well as the punishment of their wicked enemies.… Yahweh proved himself as a true king to his people because he brought the very salvation they needed.
The Hebrews, like a fire, will consume the Edomites like stubble. If anything remains, they will scatter it. What David and Amaziah had begun was accomplished by the Jews after their return, when many Israelites who came back from Persia joined them, and the Edomites were deprived of any form of domination and were forced to change their religion and to embrace the Jewish rituals.
The foolish Edomites thought that they alone were about to possess the house of Jacob. Instead the land was divided with them and with the Chaldeans. That very unforseen thing was turned against them, it says. They would be possessed by the house of Jacob and likewise be consumed like chaff or stubble by a flame. And the house of Jacob will be a fire, but the house of Joseph will be only a flame, and thus not as strong. And they will be devoured internally so that among all the tribes Jacob and Joseph will be unable to come together as one. But the other side of this fiery trope should also be seen, for the house of Jacob is called a fire and the house of Joseph a flame. It is not unreasonable to understand in the literal sense the house of Jacob as those from Judah and Benjamin. It is just as true that the house of Joseph represents Samaria, specifically, the ten tribes who were sometimes kings of the Ephraimites, since Manasseh and Ephraim were born from Joseph. Israel will possess the land of Edom and possess all of its confines to the south. They will capture no less than Mount Ephraim, Samaria, Benjamin and Gilead—which were the names of those areas when their leader, Joshua, the successor of Moses, apportioned the land to the tribes of Israel. But after Israel was devastated at the hand of Assyria and again after the attack of Nebuchadnezzar, ruled by Phua and Shalmanezer, he predicts they will once again inhabit the land after they are released from their former captivity.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Esau · Mount of Edom, — Mount of Edom,
Zion · Restoration of, promised — Restoration of, promised
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Obadiah 18
18. And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the Lord hath spoken it
18. Et erit domus Jacob ignis, et domus Joseph in flammam (flamma, ut respondeat,) et domus Esau erit palea; et ardebunt in ipsis et consument (vorabunt) eos; et non erit quidquam residuum domui Esau, quia Jehova loquutus est.
Here again the Prophet meets a doubt, which might come into the mind of each of them; for the Idumeans were flourishing, and their condition was independent, when the Israelites as well as the Jews were led into…
"And the house of Jacob will be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble. And they will burn among them, and consume them, and there will not be one left to the house of Esau, for Jehovah hath spoken." This verse not only resumes the discussion of the retribution, so that it corresponds to Oba 1:15, but it also affirms, as an appendix to Oba 1:17, that Edom is to be utterly destroyed. By the "house of Jacob" Judah is intended, as the co-ordination of the house of Joseph, i.e., of the ten tribes, clearly shows. The assumption that "house of Jacob" signifies all Israel, in connection with which that portion is also especially mentioned, which might be supposed…
The principle of retribution is expressed in the vivid image of a raging fire burning Edom to extinction. Edomite cities were burned by Babylonian king Nabonidus in 553 BC.
Rashi on Obadiah 1:18
for the Lord has spoken—Now where did He speak? (Num. 24:19) “Out of Jacob shall come a ruler, and he shall destroy him that remains in the city.” [from Mechilta Bo 12:16, Pirké d’Rabbi Eliezer ch. 37]
