the day of the Lord upon all nations in Oba 1:15, the judgment upon all nations and that upon the Edomites were thought of as inseparably connected, or that this induced Obadiah to place opposite to the sins of the Edomites, not their own punishment, but the punishment of all nations, more especially as, according to Oba 1:11, it must necessarily be assumed that the foreign nations participated in the sin of Edom. For this leaves the question unanswered, how Obadiah came to speak at all (Oba 1:15) of the day of the Lord upon all nations. The circumstance that, according to Oba 1:11, heathen nations had plundered Jerusalem, and committed crimes like those for which Edom is condemned in Oba 1:12-14, does not lead directly to the day of judgment upon all nations, but simply to a judgment upon Edom and the nations which had committed like sins. The difficulty is only removed by the assumption that Obadiah regarded Edom as a type of the nations that had risen up in hostility to the Lord and His people, and were judged by the Lord in consequence, so that what he says of Edom applies to all nations which assume the same or a similar attitude towards the people of God. From this point of view he could, without reserve, extend to all nations the retribution which would fall upon Edom for its sins. They should drink tâmı̄d, i.e., not at once, as Ewald has rendered it in opposition to the usage of the language, but “continually.” This does not mean, however, that “there will be no time in which there will not be one of the nations drinking the intoxicating cup, and being destroyed by drinking thereof; or that the nations will come in turn, and therefore in a long immeasurable series, one after the other, to drink the cup of intoxication,” as Caspari supposes, but “continually, so that the turn never passes from the heathen to Judah, Isa 51:22-23” (Hitzig). This drinking is more precisely defined as drinking and swallowing (לוּע, in Syriac, to devour or swallow, hence לע, a throat, so called from the act of swallowing, Pro 23:2), i.e., drinking in full draughts; and the effect, “they will be like such as have not been, have never existed” (cf. Job 10:19), i.e., they will be utterly destroyed as nations.
Verses 17-21
The Kingdom of Jehovah Established upon Zion. - The prophecy advances from the judgment upon
