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;
Because he did pursue his brother - The characteristic sin of Edom, and its punishment are one main subject of the prophecy of Obadiah, inveterate malice contrary to the law of kindred. Eleven hundred years had passed since the birth of their forefathers, Jacob and Esan. But, with God, eleven hundred years had not worn out kindred. He who willed to knit together all creation, human beings and angels, in one in Christ Ephesians 1:10, and, as a means of union, “made of one blood all nations of people for to dwell on all the face of the earth” Acts 17:26, used all sorts of ways to impress this idea of brotherhood. “We” forget relationship mostly in the third generation, often sooner; and we think it strange when a nation long retains the memories of those relationships . God, in His law, stamped on His people’s minds those wider meanings. To slay a man was to slay a “brother” Genesis 9:5.