Just as you swallowed up my people on my holy mountain, so you and the surrounding nations will swallow the punishment I pour out on you. Yes, all you nations will drink and stagger and disappear from history.
Parallel translations
- WEB For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so will all the nations drink continually. Yes, they will drink, swallow down, and will be as though they had not been.
- KJV For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.
- BSB For as you drank on My holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. They will drink and gulp it down; they will be as if they had never existed.
- NKJV For as you drank on My holy mountain, So shall all the nations drink continually; Yes, they shall drink, and swallow, And they shall be as though they had never been.
- NASB “For just as you drank on My holy mountain, All the nations will drink continually. They will drink to the last drop, And become as if they had never existed.
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
Just as Edom and the nations drank in triumph on God's holy mountain, so they will drink the cup of judgment until they vanish.
Overview
The image shifts to the cup, a common prophetic symbol for God's wrath: the nations who reveled in Judah's defeat must now drink judgment to the dregs. Their drinking ends in being 'as though they had not been,' a picture of complete undoing. This same cup of wrath is the one Christ drained on the cross for his people, bearing the judgment that the unrepentant must otherwise face.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Joel 3:17“So you will know that I am Yahweh, your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then Jerusalem will be holy, and no strangers will pass through her any more.
- Jer 49:12For Yahweh says: “Behold, they to whom it didn’t pertain to drink of the cup shall certainly drink; and are you he who shall altogether go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished, but you shall surely drink.
- Isa 51:22–23Thus says your Lord Yahweh, your God who pleads the cause of his people, “Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my wrath. You will not drink it any more:
- Jer 25:15–16For Yahweh, the God of Israel, says to me: “take this cup of the wine of wrath at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it.
- Isa 49:25–26But Yahweh says, “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the plunder retrieved from the fierce; for I will contend with him who contends with you, and I will save your children.
- 1 Pet 4:17For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God. If it begins first with us, what will happen to those who don’t obey the Good News of God?
- Jer 25:27–29“You shall tell them, ‘Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Drink, and be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.”’
- Isa 8:9–10Make an uproar, you peoples, and be broken in pieces! Listen, all you from far countries: dress for battle, and be shattered! Dress for battle, and be shattered!
- Hab 1:9All of them come for violence. Their hordes face the desert. He gathers prisoners like sand.
- Isa 29:7–8The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all who fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her, will be like a dream, a vision of the night.
- Ps 75:8–9For in Yahweh’s hand there is a cup, full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours it out. Indeed the wicked of the earth drink and drink it to its very dregs.
- Isa 42:14“I have been silent a long time. I have been quiet and restrained myself. Now I will cry out like a travailing woman. I will both gasp and pant.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 1:16 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.