therefore, as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will deal with you according to the anger and envy that you showed because of your hatred against them. And I will make myself known among them, when I judge you.
Edom watched Israel fall and claimed the ruined land as its own. God answers that claim with an oath sworn on His own life. His reply uses the exact terms Edom used — anger, envy, hatred — and it ends with a promise: this judgment will make God known.
Why the threat comes here
The oath against Edom comes right after chapters full of comfort for Israel. One commentator reads that placement as part of the message.
William KellyThe condemnation is even more solemn because it stands in contrast with the promise of goodness and mercy to Israel just before it. That blessing came to the chosen people by divine grace. From the beginning it stirred up the ever-growing bitterness of their relatives. They looked with resentment on the blessing promised to Israel, from their own heights of proud self-confidence.
God weighs the heart, not only the deed
The verse judges Edom for what was inside — anger, envy, hatred. Other nations hated Israel too. God picks out this one, and the moment it chose to act.
William KellyGod notices the feelings of the heart. In judgment He tells one case from another, as He does everywhere else. There were many proud enemies of Israel; which of them was not willing to harm the people of Jehovah's choice? But He fixes His eyes on Edom's "old enmity". On the day of Israel's disaster, Edom was harder and crueller than ever. There was not an ounce of generosity there; natural feeling had turned bitter. His own people had disgraced Him, and He was disciplining them in measure. Who were the Edomites, to use that moment to crush them without measure and destroy them without mercy?
Envy is never the final stage
The verse names envy and hatred together. One writer follows that pair through Scripture and shows where envy ends.
A. T. SchofieldIn Ezekiel 35:11 we find, in the case of Edom, that envy leads to HATRED… We now come to the most terrible thing envy ever did, in Mark 15:10. Envy handed Jesus, the Son of God, over to Pilate. It was a wretched, miserable feeling that had eaten away everything even human in the hearts of God's professed servants, the chief priests. Here envy led them to CRUCIFY CHRIST.
Judged by Edom's own anger
God does not invent a punishment for Edom. He hands back what Edom produced. One writer states the principle as a rule that reaches well beyond Edom.
F. W. GrantAnyone who nurses hostility in his soul will find that same hostility hunting him down. And when the hostility is against God and against His grace, no disguise will help: God must judge it for what it is.
The real quarrel was with God
God says the hatred was "against them" — yet He answers it Himself. What Edom saw was real; what Edom concluded was not.
F. W. GrantThe question is not between Edom and Israel, but between Edom and God. If they said the mountains of Israel were desolate, was that not true? But they did not see the difference between discipline and rejection. So they said, "They are given us to devour."
Made known — but only through judgment
The verse ends with God making Himself known. For Edom that knowledge comes by one route only, and it brings no blessing.
J. N. DarbyThis knowledge of Jehovah comes through the judgment itself. It is not a spiritual knowledge of Him that grows out of the judgment. When all the earth rejoices, Edom will lie desolate. It will be through judgment that all the nations shall know that Jehovah is God. But when God has carried out the judgment and all the earth rejoices in blessing, Edom will have only judgment.
The Edomite spirit today
One writer turns this warning on the reader. He sets Edom beside two men who saw the same failures in God's people and did the opposite.
The Bible TreasuryLet us take the lesson of it to heart, for we may easily fall into the same kind of spirit as the Edomite. Jeremiah saw the failures and sins of God's people, but he wept over them. Daniel and other godly men confessed them as their own. But the spirit of the Edomite is bitter hatred against God's people. They may have failed, but they are still His. God finds that spirit especially displeasing.
Summary
- Grudge. Edom watched God bless a relative nation. Grace given to someone else became a lifelong grudge.
- Heart. God judges anger and envy as real acts. He sees the feeling behind the deed, and the moment Edom picked to strike.
- Measure. Hostility you nurse inside turns and hunts you down. God deals with Edom by the very anger Edom used.
- Misreading. Edom mistook God's discipline for rejection and thought the land was up for grabs. That put the quarrel with God, not with Israel.
- Mirror. Jeremiah wept, Daniel confessed, Edom gloated. The failures of God's people test the watcher, not only the fallen.