All the men of your alliance have brought you on your way, even to the border. The men who were at peace with you have deceived you, and prevailed against you. Friends who eat your bread lay a snare under you. There is no understanding in him.”
Parallel translations
- KJV All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border: the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee; they that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee: there is none understanding in him.
- BSB All the men allied with you will drive you to the border; the men at peace with you will deceive and overpower you. Those who eat your bread will set a trap for you without your awareness of it.
- NKJV All the men in your confederacy Shall force you to the border; The men at peace with you Shall deceive you and prevail against you. Those who eat your bread shall lay a trap for you. No one is aware of it.
- NASB “All the people allied with you Will send you to the border, And the people at peace with you Will deceive you and overpower you. They who eat your bread Will set an ambush for you. (There is no understanding in him.)
- NLT “All your allies will turn against you. They will help to chase you from your land. They will promise you peace while plotting to deceive and destroy you. Your trusted friends will set traps for you, and you won’t even know about it.
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
Edom's own allies and friends will turn against her, betraying and ensnaring her, so that her famed wisdom fails.
Overview
Those bound to Edom by treaty and table fellowship will drive her to the border and trap her, a fitting recompense for a nation that had betrayed its own kin Israel. The treachery she practiced returns upon her through her supposed friends. The note that 'there is no understanding in him' prepares for the next verse, where God removes Edom's celebrated wisdom entirely.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Ps 41:9Yes, my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate bread with me, has lifted up his heel against me.
- Jer 30:14All your lovers have forgotten you. They don’t seek you: for I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins were increased.
- Jer 49:7Of Edom. Yahweh of Armies says: “Is wisdom no more in Teman? Has counsel perished from the prudent? Has their wisdom vanished?
- John 13:18I don’t speak concerning all of you. I know whom I have chosen. But that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.’
- Jer 38:22‘Behold, all the women who are left in the king of Judah’s house will be brought out to the king of Babylon’s princes, and those women will say, “Your familiar friends have turned on you, and have prevailed over you. Your feet are sunk in the mire, they have turned away from you.”
- Ezek 23:22–25“Therefore, Oholibah, thus says the Lord Yahweh: ‘Behold, I will raise up your lovers against you, from whom your soul is alienated, and I will bring them against you on every side:
- Isa 27:11When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.
- Jer 4:30You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with makeup, you make yourself beautiful in vain. Your lovers despise you. They seek your life.
- Jer 20:10For I have heard the defaming of many, “Terror on every side! Denounce, and we will denounce him!” say all my familiar friends, those who watch for my fall. “Perhaps he will be persuaded, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.”
- Lam 1:19“I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought food for themselves to refresh their souls.
- Hos 13:13The sorrows of a travailing woman will come on him. He is an unwise son; for when it is time, he doesn’t come to the opening of the womb.
- Ps 55:12–13For it was not an enemy who insulted me, then I could have endured it. Neither was it he who hated me who raised himself up against me, then I would have hidden myself from him.
- Isa 19:11–14The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish. The counsel of the wisest counselors of Pharaoh has become stupid. How do you say to Pharaoh, “I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?”
- Rev 17:12–17The ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority as kings, with the beast, for one hour.
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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 1:7 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
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