Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Obadiah 1:3
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. the clefts of the rock ] The word rock may here be a proper name, Selah or Petra; the reference would then be to the rock-hewn dwellings of that remarkable city. Perhaps, however, the reference is more general to the “clefts of the rock” which abounded and were used as habitations throughout Edom proper. The expression which occurs here and in Jer 49:16, is only found beside in Son 2:14, where it is used of the hiding-place of a dove.
Ewald renders this verse: “Thy heart’s haughtiness deceived thee, who inhabiteth in rock-clefts, his proud dwelling, who saith in his heart, who shall cast me down to the earth?”
“The great strength of a position such as Selah’s was shewn during the war of the Independence of Greece, in the case of the monastery of Megaspelion, which was situated, like Selah, on the face of a precipice. Ibrahim Pasha was unable to bring its defenders down by assault from below, or above, and though ungarrisoned it baffled his utmost efforts.” Speaker’s Commentary.
For a description of Petra and the approach to it, see note A, below.
NOTE A
The following graphic description of Petra from the pen of the late Dean Stanley, is taken by permission of the publishers from his well-known work, Sinai and Palestine:
“You descend from those wide downs and those white cliffs which I have before described as forming the background of the Red City when seen from the west, and before you opens a deep cleft between rocks of red sandstone rising perpendicularly to the height of one, two, or three hundred feet. This is the Sk, or ‘cleft;’ through this flows if one may use the expression the dry torrent, which, rising in the mountains half-an-hour hence, gives the name by which alone Petra is now known amongst the Arabs Wdy Msa. ‘For,’ so Sheykh Mohammed tells us ‘as surely as Jebel Hrn (the Mountain of Aaron) is so called from the burial-place of Aaron, is Wdy Msa (the Valley of Moses) so called from the cleft being made by the rod of Moses when he brought the stream through into the valley beyond.’ It is, indeed, a place worthy of the scene, and one could long to believe it. Follow me, then, down this magnificent gorge the most magnificent, beyond all doubt, which I have ever beheld. The rocks are almost precipitous, or rather, they would be, if they did not, like their brethren in all this region, overlap, and crumble, and crack, as if they would crash over you. The gorge is about a mile and a half long, and the opening of the cliffs at the top is throughout almost as narrow as the narrowest part of the defile of Pfeffers, which, in dimensions and form, it more resembles than any other of my acquaintance. At its very first entrance you pass under the arch which, though greatly broken, still spans the chasm meant apparently to indicate the approach to the city. You pass under this along the bed of the torrent, now rough with stones, but once a regular paved road like the Appian Way, the pavement still remaining at intervals in the bed of the stream the stream, meanwhile, which now has its own wild way, being then diverted from its course along troughs hewn in the rock above, or conducted through earthenware pipes, still traceable. These, and a few niches for statues now gone, are the only traces of human hand. What a sight it must have been, when all these were perfect! A road, level and smooth, running through these tremendous rocks, and the blue sky just visible above, the green caper-plant and wild ivy hanging in festoons over the heads of the travellers as they wind along, the flowering oleander fringing then, as now, this marvellous highway like the border of a garden walk. You move on; and the ravine, and with it the road, and with the road in old times the caravans of India, winds as if it were the most flexible of rivers, instead of being in truth a rent through a mountain wall. In this respect, in its sinuosity, it differs from any other like gorge I ever saw. The peculiarity is, perhaps, occasioned by the singularly friable character of the cliffs, the same character that has caused the thousand excavations beyond; and the effect is, that instead of the uniform character of most ravines, you are constantly turning round corners, and catching new lights and new aspects, in which to view the cliffs themselves. They are, for the most part, deeply red, and when you see their tops emerging from the shade and glowing in the sunshine I could almost forgive the exaggeration that calls them scarlet. But in fact they are of the darker hues which in the shadow amount almost to black, and such is their colour at the point to which I have brought you, after a mile or more through the defile the cliffs overarching in their narrowest contraction when, suddenly through the narrow opening left between the two dark walls of another turn of the gorge, you see a pale pink front of pillars and sculptured figures closing your view from top to bottom. You rush towards it, you find yourself at the end of the defile, and in the presence of an excavated temple, which remains almost entirely perfect between the two flanks of dark rock out of which it is hewn; its preservation and its peculiarly light and rosy tint being alike due to its singular position facing the ravine or rather wall of rock, through which the ravine issues, and thus sheltered beyond any other building (if one may so call it) from the wear-and-tear of weather, which has effaced, though not defaced, the features, and tanned the complexion of all the other temples.
This I only saw by degrees, coming upon it from the west; but to the travellers of old times, and to those who, like Burckhardt in modern times, came down the defile, not knowing what they were to see, and meeting with this as the first image of the Red City, I cannot conceive anything more striking. There is nothing of peculiar grace or grandeur in the temple itself (the Khazn, or Treasury, it is called) it is of the most debased style of Roman architecture; but under the circumstances, I almost think one is more startled by finding in these wild and impracticable mountains a production of the last effort of a decaying and over-refined civilisation. than if it were something which, by its better and simpler taste, mounted more nearly to the source where Art and Nature were one.
Probably anyone who entered Petra this way, would be so electrified by this apparition (which I cannot doubt to have been evoked there purposely, as you would place a fountain or an obelisk at the end of an avenue), as to have no eyes to behold or sense to appreciate anything else. Still, I must take you to the end. The Sk, though it opens here, yet contracts once more, and it is in this last stage that those red and purple variegations, which I have before described, appear in their most gorgeous hues; and here also begins, what must have been properly the Street of Tombs, the Appian Way of Petra. Here they are most numerous, the rock is honeycombed with cavities of all shapes and sizes, and through these you advance till the defile once more opens, and you see strange and unexpected sight! with tombs above, below, and in front, a Greek Theatre hewn out of the rock, its tiers of seats literally red and purple alternately, in the native rock. Once more the defile closes with its excavations, and once more opens in the area of Petra itself; the torrent-bed passing now through absolute desolation and silence, though strewn with the fragments which shew that you once entered on a splendid and busy city gathered along in the rocky banks, as along the quays of some great northern river.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The pride of thy heart hath deceived thee – Not the strength of its mountain-fastnesses, strong though they were, deceived Edom, but the pride of his heart. That strength was but the occasion which called forth the pride. Yet, it was strong in its abode. God, as it were, admits it to them. Dweller in the clefts of the rocks, the loftiness of his habitation. The whole southern country of the Edomites, says Jerome, from Eleutheropolis to Petra and Selah (which are the possessions of Esau), hath minute dwellings in caves; and on account of the oppressive heat of the sun, as being a southern province, hath under ground cottages. Its inhabitants, whom Edom expelled Deu 2:12, were hence called Horites, i. e., dwellers in caves. Its chief city was called Selah or Petra, rock. It was a city single of its kind amid the works of man . The eagles placed their nests in the rocky caves at a height of several hundred feet above the level of the valley …. The power of the conception which would frame a range of mountain-rocks into a memorial of the human name, which, once of noble name and high bepraised, sought, through might of its own, to clothe itself with the imperishablness of the eternal Word, is here the same as in the contemporary monuments of the temple-rocks of Elephantine or at least those of the Egyptian Thebes. The ornamental buildings, so often admired by travelers, belong to a later date.
Those nests in the rocks, piled over one another, meeting you in every recess, lining each fresh winding of the valleys, as each opened on the discoverer , often at heights, where (now that the face of the rock and its approach, probably hewn in it, have crumbled away) you can scarcely imagine how human foot ever climbed , must have been the work of the first hardy mountaineers, whose feet were like the chamois.
Such habitations imply, not an uncivilized, only a hardy, active, people. In those narrow valleys, so scorched by a southern sun, they were at once the coolest summer dwellings, and, amid the dearth of fire-wood, the warmest in winter. The dwellings of the living and the sepulchres of the dead were, apparently, hewn out in the same soft red sandstone-rock, and perhaps some of the dwellings of the earlier rock-dwellers were converted into graves by the Nabataeans and their successors who lived in the valley. The central space has traces of other human habitations . The ground is covered with heaps of hewn stones, foundations of buildings and vestiges of paved streets, all clearly indicating that a large city once existed here . They occupy two miles in circumference, affording room in an oriental city for 30,000 or 40,000 inhabitants.
Its theater held above 3,000. Probably this city belonged altogether to the later, Nabataean, Roman, or Christian times. Its existence illustrates the extent of the ancient city of the rock. The whole space, rocks and valleys, imbedded in the mountains which girt it in, lay invisible even from the summit of Mount Hor . So nestled was it in its rocks, that an enemy could only know of its existence, an army could only approach it, through treachery. Two known approaches only, from the east and west, enter into it.
The least remarkable is described as lying amid wild fantastic mountains, rocks in towering masses, over steep and slippery passes, or winding in recesses below. Six hours of such passes led to the western side of Petra. The Greeks spoke of it as two days journey from their world Approach how you would, the road lay through defiles .
The Greeks knew but of one ascent to it, and that, (as they deemed) made by hand; (that from the east) The Muslims now think the Sik or chasm, the two miles of ravine by which it is approached, to be supernatural, made by the rod of Moses when he struck the rock . Demetrius, the Besieger , at the head of 8,000 men, (the 4,000 infantry selected for their swiftness of foot from the whole army) made repeated assaults on the place, but those within had an easy victory from its commanding height . A few hundred men might defend the entrance against a large army.
Its width is described as from 10 to 30 feet , a rent in a mountain-wall, a magnificent gorge, a mile and a half long, winding like the most flexible of rivers, between rocks almost precipitous, but that they overlap and crumble and crack, as if they would crash over you. The blue sky only just visible above. The valley opens, but contracts again. Then it is honey-combed with cavities of all shapes and sizes. Closing once more, it opens in the area of Petra itself, the torrent-bed passing now through absolute desolation and silence, though strewn with the fragments which shew that you once entered on a splendid and busy city, gathered along in the rocky banks, as along the quays of some great northern river.
Beyond this immediate rampart of rocks, there lay between it and the Eastern Empires that vast plateau, almost unapproachable by an enemy who knew not its hidden artificial reservoirs of waters. But even the entrance gained, what gain beside, unless the people and its wealth were betrayed to a surprise? Striking as the rock-girt Petra was, a gem in its mountain-setting, far more marvelous was it, when, as in the prophets time, the rock itself was Petra. Inside the defile, an invader would be outside the city yet. He might himself become the besieged, rather than the besieger. In which of these eyries along all those ravines were the eagles to be found? From which of those lairs might not Edoms lion-sons burst out upon them? Multitudes gave the invaders no advantage in scaling those mountain-sides, where, observed themselves by an unseen enemy, they would at last have to fight man to man. What a bivouac were it, in that narrow spot, themselves encircled by an enemy everywhere, anywhere, and visibly nowhere, among those thousand caves, each larger cave, may be, an ambuscade! In mans sight Edoms boast was well-founded; but what before God?
That saith in his heart – The heart has its own language, as distinct and as definite as that formed by the lips, mostly deeper, often truer. It needeth not the language of the lips, to offend God. Since He answers the heart which seeks Him, so also He replies in displeasure to the heart which despises Him. Who shall bring me down to the earth? Such is the language of all self-sufficient security. Can Alexander fly? answered the Bactrian chief from another Petra. On the second night he was prisoner or slain . Edom probably, under his who? included God Himself, who to him was the God of the Jews only. Yet, men now, too, include God in their defiance, and scarcely veil it from themselves by speaking of fortune rather than God; or, if of a coarser sort, they do not even veil it, as in that common terrible saying, He fears neither God nor devil. God answers his thought;
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Oba 1:3-5
The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee.
Pride
I. That the most despicable people are often the most disposed to pride. Edom is described as greatly despised. Small and disdainable as they were, they were nevertheless proud. Men of great intellect and lofty genius are characteristically humble. An old writer has observed that where the river is the deepest the water glides the smoothest. Empty casks sound most; whereas well-fraught vessel silences its own sound. As the shadow of the sun is largest when its beams are lowest; so we are always least when we make ourselves the greatest.
II. That pride evermore disposes to self-deception and presumption.
1. To self-deception. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee. Pride is a wonderful artist: it magnifies the small, it beautifies the ugly, it honours the ignoble, it makes the truly little, ugly, contemptible man appear large, handsome, dignified in his own eyes.
2. To presumption. 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? The Edomites are here taunted with the confidence that they placed in their lofty and precipitous mountain, and the insolence with which they scouted any attempt to subdue them. A proud man always presumes on strength, reputation, and resources which he has not. Ah! self-deception and presumption are the twin offspring of pride.
III. That the most strenuous efforts to avoid punishment due to pride will prove futile. Two things are taught here concerning its punishment–
1. Its certainty. Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, etc. If, like the eagle, they towered high up into the air, far up among the clouds, nestled among the stars, and made the clouds their footstool, the fowler of retribution would bring them down. All attempts on behalf of the impenitent sinner to avoid punishment must fail when the day for justice to do its work has come.
2. Its completeness. If thieves came to thee, if robbers by night (how art thou cut off!), would they not have stolen till they had enough? if the grape-gatherers came to thee, would they not leave some grapes? The spoliation which thou shalt suffer shall not be such as that which thieves cause, bad as that is; for these, when they have seized enough, or all they can get in a hurry, leave the rest; but it shall be utter, so as to leave thee nothing. Beware, then, of pride. (Homilist.)
Pride of heart
The prophet, having predicted in the former verses that God would accomplish the destruction of Edom by hostile nations, now intimates that their natural situation of strength shall afford them no protection. God is never at a loss for troops whereby to subdue those whose dwelling is in the high rocks.
I. Pride of heart is deceptive. The inhabitants of Edom imagined that they were perfectly secure in their elevated habitation of rocks. In this they were deceived.
1. Pride of heart deceives men in the commercial sphere of life. There are godless merchants in the world who are deceived by the pride of their heart.
2. Pride of heart deceives men in reference to their intellectual thinkings.
3. In reference to their moral safety. Their rocky places are no refuge against the retributive providence of God.
II. Pride of heart is presumptuous.
1. It presumes unduly upon the natural, temporal, and secondary advantages it may possess.
2. It presumes ignorantly, without taking into view the access which God has to men, notwithstanding their temporal fortifications.
3. It presumes unwarrantably upon the inability of men to achieve its ruin.
III. Pride of heart is destructive. I will bring thee down, saith the Lord. Man may make lawful things the subject of unlawful boasting.
1. Such men are often brought to humiliation by commercial failure.
2. By social slander.
3. By death. Their destruction is certain, lamentable, humiliating, unexpected, irreparable. (The Pulpit.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. 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 sela, rock, Petra, the capital of Idumea, is intended.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The pride of thy heart: the Edomites were, as most mountaineers are, a rough, hardy, and daring people; necessitated sometimes to extraordinary adventures, and many times succeeded in attempts which others would not venture upon; hence they did swell in pride and confidence, and their hearts were bigger than their achievements, and they proud above measure.
Hath deceived thee; magnifying thy strength above what really it is.
Thou, people of Edom,
that dwellest in the clefts of the rock; houses, fortresses, towns, and cities, built upon inaccessible rocks, which neither could be undermined nor scaled. Or: dwellest in dark deep, and unsearchable caves amidst the rocks.
That saith in his heart; who think with themselves, and are upon report of an invasion ready to say,
Who shalt bring me down to the ground? it is not possible for armies to approach to us, nor bring their engines to shake or batter our walls. Who shall? i.e. none can.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. clefts of . . . rock(Son 2:14; Jer 48:28).The cities of Edom, and among them Petra (Hebrew, sela,meaning “rock,” 2Ki 14:7,Margin), the capital, in the Wady Musa, consisted of housesmostly cut in the rocks.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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: or, “thou that dwellest in the circumferences of the rock” p; round about it, on the top of it, in a tower built there, as Kimchi and Ben Melech. Aben Ezra thinks that “caph”, the note of similitude, is wanting; and that the sense is, thou thoughtest that Mount Seir could secure thee, as they that dwell in the clefts of a rock:
whose habitation [is] high; upon high rocks and mountains, such as Mount Seir was, where Esau dwelt, and his posterity after, him. The Targum is,
“thou art like to an eagle that dwells in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is in a high place;”
this they were proud of, thinking themselves safe, which deceived them; hence it follows:
that saith in his heart, who shall bring me down to the ground? what enemy, ever so warlike and powerful, will venture to invade my land, or besiege me in my strong hold? or, if he should, he can never take it, or take me from hence, conquer and subdue me. Of the pride, confidence, and security of mystical Edom or antichrist, see Re 18:7.
p “in gyris, sive circuitionibus petrae”, so some in Vatablus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Prophet now laughs to scorn the Idumeans, because they relied on their own fortresses, and thought themselves, according to the common saying, to be beyond the reach of darts; and hence they petulantly insulted the Israelites and despised God himself. The Prophet therefore says, that the Idumeans in vain felicitated themselves, for he shows that all they promised to themselves were mere delusions. The import of what is said then is, “Whence is this your security, that ye think that enemies can do you no harm? Yea, ye despise God as well as men; whence is this haughtiness? whence also is the great confidence with which ye are puffed up? Verily, it comes only from mere delusions. The pride of thine heart has deceived thee.”
And yet there was not wanting a reason why the Idumeans were thus insolent, as the Prophet also states: but he at the same time shows that they had deceived themselves; for God cared not for their fortresses; nay, he counted them as nothing. Thou dwellest, he says, (this is to be regarded as a concession,) in the clefts of the stone; some read, “between the windings of the rock;” (73) though others think סלע Salo to be the name of a city. But though I should allow that the Prophet alludes to the name of a city, I yet do not see how can that stand which they hold; for clefts comfort not with a city situated on a plain, though within the ranges of mountains. I do not then doubt but that סלע Salo here means mount Seir. As then the Idumeans had fortresses amidst rocks, they thought that all enemies could easily be kept out.
And hence it follows, The height is his habitation, that is, he dwells in lofty places; and hence he says in his heart, Who shall draw me down to the ground? He afterwards subjoins what I have already stated, — that though their region was exceedingly well fortified, yet the Idumeans were greatly deceived, and indulged themselves in vain delusions, “If thou shouldest raise up thy seat, he says, like the eagle”, — literally, ‘If thou shouldest rise as the eagle,’ — “and if thou shouldest among the clouds (74) set and nest, I will thence draw thee down, saith Jehovah”. We now see that the Prophet did not without reason deride the confidence with which the Idumeans were inflated, by setting up their fortresses in opposition to God: for it is the greatest madness for men to rely on their own power and to despise God himself. At the same time he could, as it were, easily dissipate by one blast every idea of defense or of power that is in us; but this subject will be more fully handled by us tomorrow.
(73) Blayney renders the same words in Jer 49:16, “the encirclings of the rock:” but Parkhurst renders them “the cracks, or fissures of the rock.” — Ed.
(74) Literally it is, “among the stars,” בין כוכבים. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
3, 4. It was the pride and arrogance of Edom that caused her to scheme against the people of Jehovah. This arrogance was based very largely upon the almost impregnable position of the Edomite strongholds; but, says Jehovah, these natural defenses will not be able to withstand the divine attacks.
Pride Not the rock-castles, though these furnished the basis for the pride. For the sake of emphasis the subject is, contrary to common Hebrew usage, placed first.
Clefts of the rock The word translated “rock” Hebrews sela’ might be understood as a proper noun, Sela, which is the name of the ancient capital of Edom, changed at a later time to Petra, a word of similar import. If so, the reference would be to the rock-hewn dwellings of the capital. “Sela was situated on either side of a deep ravine, which runs winding like a stream through precipitous and overhanging cliffs for a distance of not less than a mile and a half. The cliffs are honeycombed with caverns, and in these caverns, reached by artificial means of access, the Edomites dwelt” (compare Hastings’s Dictionary of the Bible, article “Sela”). It is more probable, however, that the allusion is to the rocky features of the entire country.
Who shall bring me down to the ground? To the proud Edomites their position seemed impregnable; they might laugh at every attempt to displace them. “The great strength of a position such as Sela’s was shown during the war of the independence of Greece, in the case of the monastery of Megaspelion, which was situated, like Sela, on the face of a precipice. Ibrahim Pasha was unable to bring its defenders down by assault from below or above, and though ungarrisoned it baffled his utmost efforts.” The failure of the natural strongholds of Edom to protect the inhabitants would bring out more prominently the irresistible power of Jehovah (Jer 49:16).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“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? (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. (5) If thieves came to thee, if robbers by night, (how art thou cut off!) would they not have stolen till they had enough? if the grapegatherers came to thee, would they not leave some grapes? (6) How are the things of Esau searched out! how are his hidden things sought up! (7) All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border: the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee; they that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee: there is none understanding in him. (8) Shall I not in that day, saith the LORD, even destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau? (9) And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed, to the end that everyone of the mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.”
Edom that is the descendants of Esau flourished greatly in temporal things. We read of dukes of Edom. Gen 36:15-19 . Yes! high titles and loud sounding names they had. Poor Isaac seemed to hint at this, Gen 27:40 . breaking the yoke of Israel from off his neck. And is it not so now? What said Paul in his days? 1Co 1:2 ~. And what were God’s people then? 1Co 4:9 . What are they now?
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Oba 1:3 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?
Ver. 3. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee ] So as to make thee think thyself some great business when it’s no such matter, and that thou canst secure thyself in thy strongholds from thy strongest enemies: but herein thy pride hath befooled thee, and put the same trick upon thee that the serpent did once upon the first woman, Gen 3:13 (the same word is there used as here), who complained, when she was in the transgression, 1Ti 2:14 , “The serpent hath deceived me.” He is still the king of all the children of pride; and thereby cheateth them, ravisheth them of their right reason, and rendereth them the direct objects of God’s hatred and heavy displeasure, Jas 4:6 ; he setteth himself in battle array against them, . “Though his excellency, mount up to the heavens” (saith Zophar concerning the proud person, Job 20:6 ), “and his head reach unto the clouds; yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he?” There is a deceitfulness in sin, Heb 3:13 , a lie in all these outward vanities, Joh 2:8 : they were never true to those that trusted in them. But the proud person “feedeth upon ashes”: he feedeth himself with false hopes; “a deceived heart hath turned him aside,” put him into a fool’s paradise, “that he cannot deliver his soul,” get out of his golden dreams, “nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?” Isa 44:20 . His case is not unlike that man’s who, lying fast asleep upon the edge of a steep rock, dreams merrily of much happiness and safety; but upon the sudden starting for joy breaks his neck, and tumbles headlong into the bottom of the sea.
Thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock
Whose habitation is high
That saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down?
“ Aequalis astris gradior, et cunctos super
Altum superbo vertice attingens polum,
Demitto superos, summa votorum attigi, &c.
My roof receives me not, ‘tis air I tread:
At every step I feel my advanced head
Knock out a star in heaven.” – (Ben Jonson.)
Such great swelling words of vanity speaks the proud man, 2Pe 2:18
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the clefts, &c. Referring to the natural position of the Edomites. Compare 2Ki 14:7.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
pride: Pro 16:18, Pro 18:12, Pro 29:23, Isa 10:14-16, Isa 16:6, Jer 48:29, Jer 48:30, Jer 49:16, Mal 1:4
thou: 2Ki 14:7, 2Ch 25:12
saith: Isa 14:13-15, Isa 47:7, Isa 47:8, Jer 49:4, Rev 18:7, Rev 18:8
Reciprocal: 2Sa 17:12 – we will light 2Sa 17:28 – earthen vessels 1Ki 20:32 – Thy servant 2Ch 25:23 – took Amaziah Est 6:6 – To whom Job 20:6 – his excellency Job 40:11 – behold Psa 101:5 – an high Psa 108:10 – who will lead Son 2:14 – clefts Isa 42:11 – let the inhabitants Isa 47:1 – down Jer 21:13 – Who Jer 37:9 – Deceive Jer 48:28 – leave Jer 49:8 – dwell Jer 51:53 – mount Eze 16:49 – pride Eze 31:10 – and his Zep 2:10 – for Mar 7:22 – pride Rom 7:11 – deceived Gal 6:7 – not Eph 4:22 – deceitful Tit 3:3 – deceived Heb 3:13 – the deceitfulness Jam 1:22 – deceiving
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Oba 1:3, I shall make a quotation from an authentic work of reference concerning Edom: Edom is emphatically a land of mountains. On the west, along the side of Arabah, is a line of tow limestone hills. Back of these rise higher, igneous bocks [emphasis mine, E. M. Z.J, surmounted by variegated sandstone, of peculiar color, 2,000 feet high. The eastern side of the mountain slopes gently away into the Arabian Desert. But., though rough, the land is rich, and the terraced hillsides have in ail ages been bright with vegetation, and its people have been prosperous . . . Mount Seir was first settled by the Horites, or Horim, like the inhabitants of Palestine a people of unknown origin. During the laler patriarchal age it was conquered and possessed by Esau, the brother of Jacob, and ever after occupied by his descendants, the Edomites . . . They joined the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar in the destruction of Jerusalem, for which the later prophecies and Psalms gave them hitter denunciations . . . The Edomites, or Idumeans, south of Palestine, were conquered by the Maceabean princes and incorporated with the Jews, b, c, 130, and the Naba- thean kingdom was annexed to the Roman Empire, a. i>. 105.”-Rand-Mc- Nally Bible Atlas, page 45. This quotation will explain the phrase clefts of the rock in this verse, and it also will show the fulfillment of predictions in the other verses about the downfall of the Edomites. The reader will therefore do well to take notice of its contents, for it will be referred lo again.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1:3 The {c} 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?
(c) Which despises all others in respect of yourself, and yet you are but a handful in comparison with others, and you are shut up among the hills as separate from the rest of the world.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The outstanding mark of Edom’s national character was pride. The Hebrew word for pride (zadon) comes from a verb meaning to boil up (zid). It pictures pride as water that boils up under pressure in a cooking pot. Similarly the proud person is like a bubble that thrusts itself up but is hollow. Interestingly, the same Hebrew word occurs three times in the account of Esau, the father of the Edomites, squandering his birthright (Gen 25:27-34).
". . . the key that unlocks the central moral lesson of the book is found in these words in the third verse: ’The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee." [Note: Gaebelein, p. 48.]
"It is possible for Christians also to fall into the sin of pride. One has only to dismiss God from the reckoning, one has but to slip into the habit of neglecting his Bible, one has merely to fail to be alone with God daily in prayer, and he too may fall into the sin of making decisions and living his life on a secular basis without placing God and His will foremost." [Note: Ibid., p. 52. This writer’s discussion of the sin of pride in the light of today (pp. 48-52) is worth reading.]
The Edomites thought they were superior because they inhabited a lofty region, Mt. Seir. They thought they were secure because they occupied this militarily favorable location. In fact, they thought they were invincible.
"Edom’s natural defenses were imposing. Its main centers of civilization were situated in a narrow ridge of mountainous land southeast of the Dead Sea . . . This ridge exceeded a height of 4,000 feet throughout its northern sector, and it rose in places to 5,700 feet in the south. Its height was rendered more inaccessible by the gorges radiating from it toward the Arabah on the west and the desert eastwards.
"In addition to these natural fortifications, Edom was strongly defended by a series of Iron Age fortresses, particularly on the eastern frontier where the land descended more gradually to the desert." [Note: Armerding, pp. 342-43.]
The rock (Heb. sela’) in view is the granite and sandstone that made up Mt. Seir. Though Sela was also the name of an Edomite town (cf. 2Ki 14:7), here the mountain home of the whole nation seems to be in view. The Greek translation of sela’ is Petra, the modern name of this town.