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plundering of Jerusalem were an accomplished fact, whether in idea or in reality, as it is shown to be by the perfects בּאוּ and ידּוּ in Oba 1:11, Obadiah could not in that case warn the Edomites against rejoicing over it, or even taking part therein. Hence Drusius, Rosenmüller, and others, take the verbs in Oba 1:12-14 as futures of the past: “Thou shouldest not have seen, shouldest not have rejoiced,” etc. But this is opposed to the grammar. אל followed by the so-called fut. apoc. is jussive, and cannot stand for the pluperf. conjunct. And Maurer's suggestion is just as untenable, namely, that yōm in Oba 1:11 denotes the day of the capture of Jerusalem, and in Oba 1:12, Oba 1:13 the period after this day; since the identity of יום עמדך (the day of thy standing) in Oba 1:11 with יום אחיך in Oba 1:12 strikes the eye at once. The warning in Oba 1:12-14 is only intelligible on the supposition, that Obadiah has not any particular conquest and plundering of Jerusalem in his mind, whether a future one or one that has already occurred, but regards this as an event that not only has already taken place, but will take place again: that is to say, on the assumption that he rises from the particular historical event to the idea which it embodied, and that, starting from this, he sees in the existing case all subsequent cases of a similar kind. From this ideal standpoint he could warn Edom of what it had already done, and designate the disastrous day which had come upon Judah and Jerusalem by different expressions as a day of the greatest calamity; for what Edom had done, and what had befallen Judah, were types of the future development of the fate of Judah and of the attitude of Edom towards it, which go on fulfilling themselves more and more until the day of the Lord upon all nations, upon the near approach of which Obadiah founds his warning in Oba 1:15. The warning proceeds in Oba 1:12-14 from the general to the particular, or from the lower to the higher. Obadiah warns the Edomites, as Hitzig says, “not to rejoice in Judah's troubles (Oba 1:12), nor to make common cause with the conquerors (Oba 1:13), nor to outdo and complete the work of the enemy (Oba 1:14).” By the cop. Vav, which stands at the head of all the three clauses in Oba 1:12, the warning addressed to the Edomites, against such conduct as this, is linked on to what they had already done.
The three clauses of Oba 1:12 contain a warning in a graduated form against malicious pleasure. ראה