Edom's Sin

Edom's Sin (1): Pride

Watch this lesson on YouTube, or listen to it here.

Intro

1) In our last lesson we talked about how Obadiah was written “concerning Edom.” We talked about who Edom was and why it is so important for understanding Obadiah.

2) In this lesson we will talk about what Edom did that was wrong and made God so mad.

A) In the prophetic paradigm, this is Rebellion (highlighted red).

Edom’s Sin

1) Pride

A) Ob. 3-4

1) v. 3a – “The pride of your heart has deceived you”

2) They thought they were secure, and unbeatable.

3) “The Edomites’ haughty pride tricked them into believing they were self-sufficient. Pride was their preeminent sin, giving them false hope of being secure in their mountain fortress. Edom’s source of pride was where they lived, ‘in the clefts of the rocks’ and in their ‘home on the heights.’”[1]

B) Others

1) Jer. 49:7ff.

(a) v. 7 – Wisdom has perished.

(b) v. 10 – God has uncovered him.

2) Mal. 1:4-5

(a) They think they will rebuild, but they will not because, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel”

(b) They had been humbled, and they still had not learned. This is a high level of arrogance.

C) Pride deceives (Ob. 3a). Satan’s core personal flaw, and his own tool for temptation is pride.

1) Gen. 2:5 – “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

2) Is. 14:12-15 – This was Satan’s fall.

D) God humbles the proud, and there is nobody who can claim to be something before God.

1) Nebuchadnezzar

(a) Dan. 4:29-32

(i) Q – How long is “seven periods of time” (i.e. a perfect amount of time?)

(ii) A – However long it takes you to figure out who God is and what that means.

(b) Dan. 4:34-37 – This is where we need to see ourselves before God in all things.

2) The rich fool (Lk. 12:16-21)

3) Prov. 16:18 – “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

E) Applications

1) “We live in the undefeatable United States of America” (cf. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon (defeated in a night), Persia, Greece (Alexander died), Rome, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, etc.).

2) “I work for a stable company that will never go under.”

(a) Enron

(i) Names Fortune Magazine’s “America’s Most Innovative Company” 6 years in a row in the 1990s.

(ii) The 7th biggest company in the country.

(iii) In 2001, they got caught cheating on their books and within months they were bankrupt.

(iv) 20,000 employees lost their jobs and most of them lost their entire retirement savings.

3) “My untouchable position at my job. I’m not replaceable.”

4) “My bank account and savings.”

(a) Matt. 6:19-20 – “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

5) cf. What kind of attitude we want:

(a) James 4:13-16

(b) Ps. 39:4-6

6) 1 Cor. 10 – My spiritual life and my own moral “goodness.”

(a) vv. 1-5 – Israelite failures. What is our response to reading about the Jews in the OT? What a bunch of idiots and losers.

(b) v. 6 – These are examples FOR US!

[1] Billy Smith, NAC.

Edom's Sin (2)

Watch this lesson on YouTube, or listen to it here.

1) Family betrayal

A) Ob. 10

1) Edom’s violence was a problem, but there are other examples of this listed later. The first thing listed in the list in vv. 10-14 is the betrayal of the family relationship. Emphasis on “your brother!”

2) Recall that Israel and Edom have their origins in the brothers, Jacob and Esau.

3) Deut. 23:7 – “You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother.”

4) “Edom” and “Esau” are used throughout Ob, but “brother” is used twice in this section (vv. 10, 12).

B) Others

1) Amos 1:11

2) Ezek. 25:12 – “Edom acted revengefully against the house of Judah and has grievously offended in taking vengeance on them…”

3) See Ezek. 35:5 – “Because you cherished perpetual enmity and gave over the people of Isreal to the power of the sword at the time of their calamity…”

4) ESVSB – “And instead of coming to the aid of their brother Jacob, the Edomites acted like the foreign invaders (Babylonians).”

5) POINT: This kind of ongoing feud within a family of people is not acceptable to God.

C) Notes

1) “For brothers to fight under any circumstances is bad enough. But for Edom to pounce on Judah after Babylon had flattened them and left them helpless and undefended was reprehensible.”[1]

2) cf.

(a) Ps. 133:1

(b) The second command: Lev. 19:18 / Matt. 22:39

(i) Matt. 5:43

(ii) Lk. 15 – The older brother who would not be right with the prodigal is the bad guy. Forgiveness is a big part of God’s plan.

3) POINT: God takes this seriously. Most parents can understand. If our kids in our family don’t get along and keep rivalry and vengeance against each other something is very wrong and it needs to be corrected.

2) Standing aloof

A) Ob. 11

1) Because you did nothing when your brother was attacked by “strangers” and “foreigners”, “you were like one of them.”

2) ESVSB – God “rebukes the Edomites, not for actively doing wrong but for failing to do right—i.e., for failing to give military support to neighboring Jerusalem when it was wrongly attacked.”

3) God’s problem is not that they necessarily did something wrong (which they did), but that they failed to do anything at all.

4) “Edom acted like Babylon, an enemy, not like a brother. Help was needed because strangers were carrying off the wealth of Jerusalem, but Edom did not lift one finger to help. Their behavior showed that they were on the side of their brother’s enemies. Refusing to come to the aid of someone in need is the same as rendering the harm yourself.”[2]

B) Others

1) Lam. 1:1-2 – Jerusalem is lonely, and “all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.”

C) Notes

1) Bible

(a) Judges 5:14-18 – Some of Israel helped, but others just stood by and did nothing.

(b) Lk. 10:25ff. – The good Samaritan did what the priest and Levite should have done.

(i) James 4:17 – “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

2) Famous quotes

(a) NOTE: I don’t always love quotes like these because people use them to guilt others into a cause that I don’t necessarily believe in. However, the concept is a true one when it comes to God’s will for humanity.

(b) “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

(c) John Stuart Mill – “A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”

(d) Albert Einstein – “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”

(e) Napoleon – “The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of good people.”

(f) Confucius – “To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.”

3) Celebrating another’s fall

A) Ob. 12

1) Gloating

(a) NKJV – “You should not have gazed on the day of your brother”

(b) DLB – one definition of this work is “to find delight…implying a satisfaction over another’s misfortune”

2) Rejoicing

3) Boasting

(a) Heb. “do not enlarge your mouth”

(b) I can see a case for boasting with this, but even more than that is the loudmouthed person who just won’t shut up.

4) “It involves an attitude of superiority having compared oneself to someone else. Such an attitude based upon the misfortune of others is bad enough in itself, but toward a brother it is worse. Unfortunately, there is a sinful human tendency toward such self-evaluation based on external circumstances.”[3]

B) Others

1) Ps. 137:7-9 – “how they said, ‘Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!’”

2) Ezek. 35:15 – “As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so I will deal with you; you shall be desolate…”

C) Notes

1) Lk. 23:34-38 – I don’t imagine God thinks gloating at another person’s suffering is very funny.

2) Prov. 24:17-18

3) Prov. 17:5

4) Why?

(a) Ezek. 33:11 – God does not have pleasure in another discipline or destruction. Sometimes parents have to discipline their kids, but none of us enjoys it.

Transition: We are just now to Edom actively doing something wrong.

Everything up to this point has been about a smug and hateful attitude: Pride, standing aloof, running your mouth at someone else’s suffering. This should be a wakeup call that God cares as much about our hearts and attitudes as he does the actual hurtful and sinful things we do to other people.

4) Looting

A) Ob. 13

1) Edom did not create the initial destruction, but after Jerusalem was defeated Edom “entered the gate” and “looted his wealth” like vultures.

2) “The wordplay in the Hebrew text between the term translated “their disaster” ( ʾêdām) and Edom is lost in English translations. The point of the wordplay may be that what appeared to be a day of disaster for Israel would ultimately prove to be a day of disaster for Edom. 8 When Edom looked upon Judah’s disaster, they were in effect looking into a mirror.”[4]

3) “As vv. 13-14 show, Edom acted like buzzards circling a dying animal, waiting until Babylon soundly defeated Judah and Jerusalem. The siege of Jerusalem lasted about eighteen months (2 Kgs 25: 1-8). When the city fell, Nebuchadnezzar’s forces moved in with a vengeance to destroy, kill, and pillage. Then when they were finished, Judah’s kinsmen moved in to loot, to capture fugitives to sell as slaves, and to kill those who fled from the destruction.”[5]

B) Others

1) Ezek. 35:10-11 – “Because you said, ‘These two nations and these two countries shall be mind, and we will take possession of them’… I will deal with you according to the anger and envy that you shoed because of your hatred against them.”

2) Judah is down, so let’s swoop in and take advantage of their weakness and exploit their situation for ourselves.

C) Notes

1) This is like kicking someone when they are already down. This is being a bully.

5) Cutting down fugitives

A) Ob. 14

1) Some have escaped Babylon and are running for their lives, but Edom is cutting them off and handing them over to the Babylonians or slave traders.

2) “The victims of Edom’s actions were citizens or soldiers (or both) fleeing from Jerusalem in the wake of Nebuchadnezzar’s attack. Judeans would have been panic stricken and helpless to defend themselves.”[6]

B) Others

1) Lam. 4:18-22

2) Joel 3:19 – Edom will be “a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the people of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land.”

C) Notes

1) Next lesson: Their punishment

2) v. 15 – “As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head.”

3) We should probably remember this before we take prideful, spiteful attitudes towards other people when they are suffering and struggling.

6) Summary of Edom’s sin, and things that need to be rooted out of our hearts:

A) Pride

B) Family betrayal

C) Standing aloof

D) Celebrating another’s fall (gloating, rejoicing, boasting)

E) Looting

F) Cutting down fugitives

[1] Smith, NAC

[2] Smith, NAC

[3] Smith, NAC

[4] Smith, NAC

[5] Smith, NAC

[6] Smith, NAC

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