Ezekiel 35:5

The prophets keep pointing to Edom's dealings with Israel, and God judges Edom for its perpetual hatred of them. Ezek. 35:5. God once stirred up the king of Edom to punish Israel (1 Kings 11:14). Later He strengthened Israel to punish Edom. 2 Chr. 25:10-11. Some of the prophecies however extend to the future. Edom took pleasure in the punishment of Judah when judgment was falling upon it. Of Jerusalem they said, "Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!" Ps. 137:7, showing, as other passages do too, the hatred and jealousy of the descendants of Esau.

This threat is all the more solemn because it stands in contrast with the promise of goodness and mercy to Israel just before it. It was this very blessing, given by God's grace to the chosen people, that from the beginning stirred the growing bitterness of their relatives. They looked with resentment on the blessing promised to Israel, and they looked from their own heights of proud self-confidence.

This is where the Edomite's lasting grudge and hatred against the Israelite comes from. And that hatred is really against God, against God's thoughts and ways. So no wonder it gets special attention here, just when Israel comes into his blessing. That is also the time when God casts Edom out for good.

God notices the feelings of the heart, and He makes distinctions in judgment, as He does in everything else. Israel had many proud enemies. Which of them was not willing to harm the people of Jehovah's choice? But He fixes His eyes on "the old enmity" of Edom. He fixes them on a hardness that was crueller than usual in the day of Israel's disaster, "at the time of the iniquity of the end." There was not a scrap of generosity in it. Natural family feeling had turned bitter as poison. His own people had shamefully dishonoured Him, and He was chastening them in measure. Who were the Edomites to take advantage of that, to crush without measure and destroy without mercy?

There is no doubt that Edom is the special object of judgment in the last days. But the passages you quote refer to the time when Israel will be in their land, and the Lord has come down to judgment. Ezekiel 35 does point directly to the time of the Babylonian captivity, when Edom, Jacob's rival, gloated over the ruin of Jerusalem. It also goes on to the final desolation of Mount Seir.

The enmity a man nurses in his soul will end up pursuing him. And when that enmity is against God and against His grace, however he may disguise it, God must judge it as such, and the end is sure.

Let us take the lesson to heart, for we can easily fall into the same 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 those sins as their own. The spirit of the Edomite is different: bitter hatred against people who are still the people of God, however they may have failed. That spirit is especially displeasing to Him.