Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame and cut off forever.
Parallel translations
- WEB For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever.
- KJV For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever.
- NKJV “For violence against your brother Jacob, Shame shall cover you, And you shall be cut off forever.
- NASB ¶“Because of violence to your brother Jacob, Shame will cover you, And you will be eliminated forever.
- NLT “Because of the violence you did to your close relatives in Israel, you will be filled with shame and destroyed forever.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Because of the violence Edom did to her brother Jacob, she will be covered with shame and cut off forever.
Overview
Here the central charge against Edom is stated: violence against 'your brother Jacob,' that is, against Israel, with whom Edom shared ancestry through Esau and Jacob. The bond of kinship made Edom's hostility especially grievous, betraying both family and the covenant people of God. The sentence of lasting shame underscores how seriously God regards cruelty toward those he has chosen.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 23
- Amos 1:11This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Edom, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and stifled all compassion; his anger raged continually, and his fury flamed incessantly.
- Mal 1:3–4but Esau I have hated, and I have made his mountains a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”
- Gen 27:41Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”
- Ps 137:7Remember, O LORD, the sons of Edom on the day Jerusalem fell: “Destroy it,” they said, “tear it down to its foundations!”
- Ezek 35:9I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
- Ps 89:45You have cut short the days of his youth; You have covered him with shame. Selah
- Num 20:14–21From Kadesh, Moses sent messengers to tell the king of Edom, “This is what your brother Israel says: You know all the hardship that has befallen us,
- Ezek 25:12–14This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because Edom acted vengefully against the house of Judah, and in so doing incurred grievous guilt,
- Jer 49:17–20“Edom will become an object of horror. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.
- Ezek 35:5–7Because you harbored an ancient hatred and delivered the Israelites over to the sword in the time of their disaster at the final stage of their punishment,
- Ps 69:7For I have endured scorn for Your sake, and shame has covered my face.
- Ps 83:5–9For with one mind they plot together, they form an alliance against You—
- Gen 27:11Jacob answered his mother Rebekah, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, but I am smooth-skinned.
- Lam 4:21So rejoice and be glad, O Daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz. Yet the cup will pass to you as well; you will get drunk and expose yourself.
- Joel 3:19Egypt will become desolate, and Edom a desert wasteland, because of the violence done to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood.
- Ps 109:29May my accusers be clothed with disgrace; may they wear their shame like a robe.
- Mic 7:10Then my enemy will see and will be covered with shame—she who said to me, “Where is the LORD your God?” My eyes will see her; at that time she will be trampled like mud in the streets.
- Ezek 7:18They will put on sackcloth, and terror will overwhelm them. Shame will cover all their faces, and all their heads will be shaved.
- Ezek 35:12–15Then you will know that I, the LORD, have heard every contemptuous word you uttered against the mountains of Israel when you said, ‘They are desolate; they are given to us to devour!’
- Jer 51:51“We are ashamed because we have heard reproach; disgrace has covered our faces, because foreigners have entered the holy places of the LORD’s house.”
- Ps 132:18I will clothe his enemies with shame, but the crown upon him will gleam.”
- Jer 49:13For by Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, that Bozrah will become a desolation, a disgrace, a ruin, and a curse, and all her cities will be in ruins forever.”
- Jer 3:25Let us lie down in our shame; let our disgrace cover us. We have sinned against the LORD our God, both we and our fathers; from our youth even to this day we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The day of the LORD against proud Edom and the promise that 'the kingdom shall be the LORD's' anticipate the final reign of Christ over every hostile power.
How Obadiah 1:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.