“And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed.” Faced with the frightfulness of the fall of Esau, even the mighty are dismayed. “O Teman” is God’s ancient name for the creature man. There is none among men so great, so mighty, as may not be dismayed by the fulfilling of this prophecy. The calamity is face to face. The ruin is around us, growing greater by the hour. The wisdom to change, to deal with it, is gone, and the understanding of men is vanished, so that the mighty are dismayed. “To the end that every one of the mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.” Not natural death, but slaughter! It is something to look forward to, is it not? How did we come to this pass in the first place? We forsook God, we ran wild for new knowledge, for man’s wisdom, for technical triumphs and mechanical marvels, forgetting how great Thou art! We gave up our light for darkness, cursing the God of light, and establishing ourselves on the mount of Esau, the reasoning of the natural mind. No enemy came against us, but we brought about our own downfall from within our own borders, and lost all our God-given wisdom and understanding in the process. If we wish to know all that is ahead of us, and the reason for it, we may read it in the little book that Obadiah left for us. It does not take long to read, but perhaps we will wish we had never read it. There is not one ray of hope in it for us, and unless we turn individually from mount Esau to mount Zion there will be no deliverance from the things still to come.
“For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever.” We come now to the reason for the fall of Edom. There are two natures, the natural and the spiritual. Jacob is the representation of the spiritual, Esau is the representation of the natural. The so-called Christian nations forsook God in their quest for material and natural ways of living, and in so doing they let the spiritual side of life fall into captivity. As the natural prospered, so the spiritual suffered. But this is a shameful thing to be allowed to happen, and for thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee. We are made to be ashamed, our greatness is taken away from us and the nakedness of our position puts us to shame. If that were all it would be bad enough, but worse is in store for us – “and thou shalt be cut off for ever.” The “heathen” nations are to rise against us, and we will be not only put to shame, we will be cut off for ever. Why? “For thy violence against thy brother Jacob.” For allowing our spiritual heritage to be dissipated, for despising our own birthright, for losing the blessing we should have had by rights, for grieving our father God and our mother church, and for our violence against our brother Jacob that drove him out. Esau represents the natural, Jacob the spiritual. We did not merely ignore Jacob in favor of Esau – we violently opposed Jacob all along the way, and because of that we will be made bitterly ashamed – shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever. Thus saith the Lord God.
Now the prophecy of Obadiah is not against Esau as such, but against Edom. If it were against Esau it would be a warning to all mankind, but here we see mankind is not meant, for the prophecy is against Edom only. “Thus saith the Lord God concerning Edom.” In other words mankind is here divided into Christian nations and non-Christian nations. The non-Christian nations are referred to as “the heathen” whilst the Christian nations (so-called) are epitomized by Edom. The characteristic of Edom is given in verse three – “thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high” – or as we might say, “In God we trust.” Edom is Esau stained red. The distinguishing mark of the Christian nations is the Cross. If we look at our own history we will see that we were meant to follow Christ, to trust in God, to uphold the Cross, to be a Christian nation. But we left off following Christ, we gave up our trust in God, we despised the Cross, and we lost our standing as a Christian nation. The “heathen” nations may be totally atheistic yet they are left to prosper, while we are brought low in shame, waiting to be destroyed. Why? Because God holds us accountable, as those who once tasted that the Lord is gracious. Our last state is worse than our first. The blood of Jesus Christ is on our hands – we are Esau, the brother of Jacob, but bloody – we are seen to be Edom. We have crucified the Lord afresh, and put Him to open shame, and for our part in that wickedness we have brought upon ourselves the anger of our righteous Judge, the Lord God Himself.
