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, Mount Seir, and all Edom, all of it. Then they will know that I am the LORD.
Edom's long quarrel with Israel ends here. The nation that cheered while Israel's land lay in ruins will itself become a ruin. Two questions sit under the verse. Why does God treat gloating over His people as an offence against Himself? And why does the blow fall just as the whole earth begins to rejoice?
The controversy God settles
Mount Seir is the land of Edom, the people descended from Esau. This chapter is not a land dispute. It is a case God decides.
J. N. DarbyIn Ezekiel 35 God decides the controversy between Edom and Israel. He condemns Mount Seir to perpetual desolation, because of the deep-rooted hatred of that people toward Israel. On the day He chastises His people, He will not hand Israel over to Edom. It is Edom that will bear the punishment of this hatred, when the whole earth rejoices. When God chastises His people, the world thinks it can take possession of everything. But that chastisement is only the forerunner of the world's judgment.
Whose inheritance it was
Edom saw the empty land and drew a conclusion. The fact was true. The conclusion was not.
F. W. GrantBut the enemy's anger is not righteous; it is of another character. At bottom it is against Jehovah, as all unbelief is, and that is what comes out in the result here. The question is not between Edom and Israel, but between Edom and God. If they said the mountains of Israel were desolate, was it not true? But they did not see the difference between chastening and rejection. So they said, "They are given us to devour." Yet even if Israel can for a time throw themselves out of the very land that is their own, Edom can never enjoy it.
The rejoicing repaid in kind
The sentence mirrors the crime: as Edom rejoiced, so God will deal with Edom. Edom's glee rested on a verdict about Israel's future, and that verdict was false.
William KellyNo judgment was ever falser, though all of them were false, than this: that Jehovah will not yet restore and bless Israel. He will restore and bless them, not for any merit of theirs, but in His own mercy through the once rejected Messiah. He will lay waste the enemies of Israel as certainly as He will make good all that He promised to their fathers.
A man who chose the world
Edom's hatred goes back to Esau himself, and to what he chose for a portion.
J. G. BellettGod's sentence on Edom is announced in an awful way: "When the whole earth rejoices, I will make you desolate." For Esau, called "the profane," deliberately took the world for his portion. He gave up his interest in God in exchange for it.
No survivors, no return
God leaves other nations under judgment a remnant. He leaves Edom none, and more than one prophet says so.
J. N. DarbyObadiah 5, 6, 9, 18 and Jeremiah 49:9-10, 22 also declare that none of Edom will be left. Notice that there is no restoration of a remnant, as there is for Elam and others (Jer. 49:39). Isaiah 34 pronounces the same judgment. In these chapters, and in Isaiah 63, Jehovah takes up Jerusalem's cause against Edom. In these passages Jehovah does not forget His thoughts of love toward Zion and His people.
What Edom finally knows
The verse ends with Edom knowing who the LORD is. Learning it this way is no comfort to Edom.
F. W. GrantWhat a wail there is once more in this: "they will know that I am the LORD."
The Edomite spirit, close to home
The warning here is not only for Edom. The spirit God judges is easy to copy.
The Bible TreasuryLet us take the moral 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 those who, however they may have failed, are still the people of God. This spirit is especially displeasing to Him.
Summary
- Misread — Edom saw Israel's ruined land and concluded God had finished with His people. The land was under chastening, not rejection, and the difference decided Edom's fate.
- Misdirected — Edom aimed the gloating at Israel, but it landed on God. The dispute is between Edom and God, not between two neighbouring peoples.
- Mirrored — the sentence copies the crime. Edom rejoiced over a desolate inheritance, so Edom becomes the desolation — and learns at last who the LORD is.
- Mistimed — Edom's ruin lands just as the whole earth begins to rejoice. God's chastening of His people is the forerunner of the world's judgment, not permission to plunder them.
- Mimicked — Jeremiah wept over Israel's sins. Daniel confessed them. The Edomite gloated. Anyone who sees failure in God's people today faces the same choice.