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?
| Word | Hebrew | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| pride | זְד֤וֹן ze.Don | H2087 | arrogance · noun, common masculine singular construct |
| heart | לִבְּךָ֙ li.be.Kha | H3820 | the heart · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular |
| deceived | הִשִּׁיאֶ֔ךָ hi.shi.'E.kha | H5377 | to lead astray · verb, hiphil perfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular |
| dwellest | שֹׁכְנִ֥י sho.khe.Ni | H7931 | to reside or permanently stay (literally or figurativel… · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular construct |
| clefts | בְחַגְוֵי ve.chag.vei- | H2288 | a rift in rocks · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct |
| rock | סֶּ֖לַע Se.la' | H5553 | a craggy rock · noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| habitation | יָשַׁב yâshab | H3427 | properly |
| high | מְר֣וֹם me.Rom | H4791 | altitude · noun, common masculine singular construct |
| saith | אֹמֵ֣ר 'o.Mer | H559 | to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute |
| heart | בְּלִבּ֔וֹ be.li.Bo | H3820 | the heart · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular |
| down | יוֹרִדֵ֖נִי yo.ri.De.ni | H3381 | to descend (literally · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix |
| ground | אָֽרֶץ 'A.retz | H776 | the earth (at large · noun, common feminine singular absolute |
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 from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
clefts of . . . rock-- (; ). The cities of Edom, and among them Petra (Hebrew, sela, meaning "rock," , Margin), the capital, in the Wady Musa, consisted of houses mostly cut in the rocks.
The pride of thine heart - St. Jerome observes that all the southern part of Palestine, from Eleutheropolis to Petra and Aialath, was full of caverns hewn out of the rocks, and that the people had subterranean dwellings similar to ovens. Here they are said to dwell in the clefts of the rock, in reference to the caverns above mentioned. In these they conceived themselves to be safe, and thought that no power brought against them could dislodge them from those fastnesses. Some think that by סלע sela, rock, Petra, the capital of Idumea, is intended.
The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee,.... The Edomites were proud of their wealth and riches, which they had by robberies amassed together; and of their military skill and courage, and of their friends and allies; and especially of their fortresses and fastnesses, both natural and artificial; and therefore thought themselves secure, and that no enemy could come at them to hurt them, and this deceived them: thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock; their country was called Arabia Petraea, the rocky; and their metropolis Petra, the rock: Jerom says that they that inhabited the southern part of the country dwelt in caves cut out of the rock, to screen them from the heat of the sun:…
Read the whole note in the consoleObadiah 2-4 2 Behold, I have made thee small among the heathen: thou art greatly despised. 2 Ecce parvum posui te inter gentes, contemptus tu valde. 3 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? 3 Superbia cordis tui decepit te, qui habitas in scissuras petrae (vel, rupis;) excelsa habitatio ejus, dicens in corde suo, Quis detrahet me in terram? 4 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. 4 Si exaltaveris quasi aquila, etsi inter nubes posueris nidum suum, inde…
Although you, o heretic, may seem great and despise the smallness of the Church, you are nonetheless small among the nations, and contemptible, and not only contemptible, but also very contemptible with arrogance. The pride of your heart has lifted you up. For who among heretics is not lifted up in pride, despising the simplicity of the Church and considering faith as ignorance? Dwelling in the clefts of the rock, and exalting his throne. Although the rock is often seen as representing the Lord Himself or His steadfastness (hence the prophet says, He set my feet upon a rock (Ps. XXXIX, 5)) and is also said to Peter, You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church (Mat. I, 8), yet it is often interpreted in the opposite sense: I will take away the stony heart, and will give you a heart of flesh (Ezek. XXXVI, 26). And do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father,' for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham (Matt. 3:9). Especially here, where it does not say dwelling upon the rock, upon which the wise builder builds his house, but in the clefts of the rock, in order to signify the heresies that arise from Christ the rock and from the Church.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
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).
The Lord threatens Edom with war, because He has determined to reduce and humble the nation, which now, with its proud confidence in its lofty rocky towers, regards itself as invincible. Oba 1:2. "Behold, I have made thee small among the nations; thou art greatly despised. Oba 1:3. The pride of thy heart hath deceived thee; thou that dwellest in rocky castles, upon its lofty seat; that saith in its heart, Who will cast me down to the ground?: Oba 1:4. If thou buildest high like the eagle, and if thy nest were placed among stars, thence will I cast thee down, is the saying of Jehovah." Oba 1:2 is correctly attached in Jeremiah (Oba 1:15) by כּי, inasmuch as it contains the reason for the atta…
Read the whole note in the consoleI will cut you down: Several messages of judgment rehearse Edom’s specific sins against Israel (1:10-14; Jer 49:7-22; Ezek 25:12-14; 36:5;). Edom frequently appears among the nations that opposed Israel and the Lord (Isa 34; Ezek 35–36; Amos 9:1-15). • down to size among the nations . . . your own pride: Edom’s rocky topography mimicked Edom’s pride. The height of the mountain fortress that provided their security only emphasizes the height from which Edom would fall. Edomite princes were among the arrogant rulers of the nations (Ezek 32:29; cp. Gen 36; 1 Chr 1:43-54).
who dwell in the clefts of the rock—Who relies on the support of his ancestors, Abraham and Isaac, but they shall not avail him. the clefts Heb. חַגְוֵי. Cf. (Isa. 19:17) “And the land of Judah shall be to Egypt for a dread (לְחָגָּא),” frayteyne [or fraite] in O.F., a cleft of a rock. And do not wonder about the “vav” of (Gen. 21:16) “like a shot (כִּמְטַחֲוֵי) ;” in which there is no radical in the word but the “teth” and the “heth.”
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
