Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because he pursued his brother with the sword, And cast off all pity, And his anger raged continually, And he kept his wrath forever;
Judah held Edom by aid of garrisons, as a wild beast is held in a cage, that they might not injure them, but had taken no land from them, nor expelled them. Edom sought to cast Israel out of God’s land. Revolts cannot be without bloodshed; and so it is perhaps the more probable, that the words of Joel, “for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land” Joel 3:19, relate to a massacre of the Jews, when Esau revolted from Jehoram 2 Kings 8:20-22. We have seen, in the Indian Massacres, how every living being of the ruling power may, on such occasions, be sought out for destruction. Edom gained its independence, and Jehoram, who sought to recover his authority, escaped with his life by cutting through the Edomite army by night 2 Kings 8:21. Yet in Amaziha’s time they were still on the offensive, since the battle wherein he defeated them, was again “in the valley of salt” 2 Kings 14:7; 2Ch 25:11, 2 Chronicles 25:14.