Obadiah 10–14 Do Not Gloat Over the Day of Your Brother

God is faithful. That truth is cause for songs of joy among His people, yet it is also a sobering reality. He is faithful not only in His blessings but also in His judgments. He is faithful to His promises of salvation and equally faithful to the curses He declared in His covenant. This means we must take seriously the whole counsel of God.

The passage before us forces us into difficult territory. Israel has broken God’s law, and the covenant curses have fallen on Jerusalem in horrific ways. These are not verses that sit comfortably on a devotional calendar or appear in children’s Bible storybooks. Yet they are inspired Scripture, preserved for our instruction, and they confront us with the holiness of God in a way that is impossible to ignore.

As we walk through Obadiah 10–14, we will not shy away from what is written. We will face it head on, with the hope that in doing so, the character of God will shine brighter, and the mercy of Christ will become even more astonishing.

Between Promise and Fulfillment

To understand this passage rightly, we need to set it in its place within redemptive history. Obadiah’s vision comes in the middle, after God’s promise to Abraham but before the fulfillment in Christ. It is a time when the covenant blessings and the covenant curses of the law were being worked out in real history.

Paul explains this clearly in Galatians 3:15 to 18. The law, given four hundred thirty years after Abraham, did not annul God’s promise. Instead, the promise was always pointing forward to Christ, the true offspring of Abraham. This means that even when Israel fell under the curses of the law, God’s larger covenant purposes were still moving forward toward fulfillment.

This context matters. If we only read Obadiah through the lens of human tragedy, we miss the faithfulness of God to His word. The fall of Jerusalem was not chaos. It was covenant enforcement. It was God keeping His word. That makes this passage both frightening and strangely stabilizing. It is frightening because God’s judgments are real, and stabilizing because He never abandons His covenant purposes.

Edom Misread Israel’s Fall

In verses ten to eleven, Obadiah indicts Edom for standing aloof while Israel was plundered. When Babylon swept through Jerusalem, Edom did not step in to help. Instead, they acted as though they were on the side of the invaders.

The mistake Edom made was theological. They saw Israel’s collapse and interpreted it as weakness on God’s part. But the reality was exactly the opposite. The destruction of Jerusalem was evidence of God’s strength, not His weakness. He was proving faithful to His covenant warnings.

This is where modern readers often stumble. In the Western mind, God’s discipline is seen as incompatible with His love. We assume that any enforcement of curses means God has failed or is unkind. But that is only because we have trimmed Jesus down to a sentimental figure and ignored the full weight of His teaching. A God who never judges is not faithful, He is false.

The Curses Foretold

Israel should not have been surprised by what happened. The covenant curses were written down centuries before. Deuteronomy 28 verses 45 to 57 describes in harrowing detail the hunger, siege, and desperation that would come if Israel turned from the Lord. These were not idle threats. They were covenant stipulations.

The prophets echoed these warnings. In Jeremiah 1 verses 13 to 19, God showed Jeremiah a boiling pot tipping from the north. Babylon was coming by God’s decree. Jeremiah was called to announce this judgment, even though it broke his heart.

When King Zedekiah sought help, Jeremiah’s answer was shocking. God Himself was fighting against His people in Jeremiah 21 verses 1 to 7. And yet, in the same chapter, God still offered a way of escape. Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death in Jeremiah 21 verses 8 to 10. Even at the brink of destruction, there was an open call to repentance.

But the people refused. And so the covenant curses were unleashed in full measure.

The Destruction of Jerusalem Was Horrific

Lamentations 4 verses 9 to 10 puts into words what happened. Death by sword was preferable to slow starvation, and mothers resorted to boiling their own children. These are almost unbearable verses to read. Yet they are Scripture.

Why are they preserved for us. Because they show how seriously God takes His word. What He said in Deuteronomy came to pass in Jerusalem. The horror of these scenes makes us recoil, but it should also make us tremble. God is not mocked. What He has spoken, He will surely bring to pass.

Edom’s Pride

While Jerusalem lay in ruins, Edom stood proud. They gloated over their brother’s fall, looted their goods, and even cut down the survivors who tried to flee. Their pride deceived them into thinking they were untouchable.

Obadiah 1 verse 3 exposes this mindset. The pride of your heart has deceived you. Pride blinds us. It makes us interpret God’s faithfulness as His weakness. It makes us assume that judgment is for others but never for us. Edom’s pride was their downfall, and Obadiah makes clear that they would be cut off forever.

A Dark Psalm and a Hard Ethic

Psalm 137 gives us a window into the suffering of Israel. By the rivers of Babylon, they wept. Their captors mocked them, demanding songs of Zion. And in that psalm, the cry of vengeance rises. Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock in verses 8 to 9.

These verses are rarely discussed in church because they disturb us. But they are the honest cry of a people crushed by covenant curses. They had endured siege, starvation, and humiliation. Their ethic was shaped by the law of Moses, eye for eye and tooth for tooth in Exodus 21 verses 22 to 25, Leviticus 24 verses 17 to 20, and Deuteronomy 19 verses 18 to 21.

It is important to be precise. They were not simply asking for their enemies to suffer in general terms. They wanted them to suffer the same exact things in which they had suffered. The curse in Deuteronomy 28 verse 50 said that a hard faced nation would show no mercy to the young, and that curse was fulfilled when the Chaldeans committed these acts on the babies of Jerusalem. Psalm 137 reflects the agony of a people crying out for those same horrors to be returned upon their tormentors.

This is raw human pain colliding with divine justice. And it sets the stage for the radical teaching of Christ.

Christ and the Fulfillment of the Law

When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, He directly addressed this ethic. He did not abolish the law but fulfilled it in Matthew 5 verses 17 to 20. Then He raised the stakes. Anger is murder, lust is adultery, oaths must be true, and instead of retaliation, His followers are called not to resist evil in Matthew 5 verses 21 to 39.

What Israel could not bear under the curses, Jesus bore in Himself. He fulfilled the law’s demands, and He became the curse for us in Galatians 3 verses 10 to 14. He touched the leper in Matthew 8 verses 1 to 4, displaying His authority to cleanse what the law declared unclean. He carried the full weight of the covenant’s demands so that all who trust in Him might be adopted as sons and daughters of God in Galatians 3 verses 23 to 29.

This is why the gospel is such shocking news. The holy God who was faithful in curses is also faithful in salvation.

The Edom of Today

Edom dismissed God’s judgment as irrelevant to them. Many today do the same. The gospel is mocked as foolishness, dismissed as outdated, ignored as irrelevant. But Paul tells us, The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God in First Corinthians 1 verse 18.

The world prides itself on wisdom, but God’s wisdom turns it upside down. The cross is both the stumbling block and the power of God. Edom’s pride lives on in every human heart that says, That judgment will never touch me.

Conclusion Faithful in All

Obadiah 10 to 14 forces us to look squarely at God’s faithfulness. He is faithful in blessing and in curse, in salvation and in judgment. Israel’s fall proved it. Edom’s pride ignored it. And today, the cross proclaims it again.

The promise to Abraham was fulfilled in Christ. You cannot obtain it through law or through works. You must come through Him. Look at the faithfulness of God and tremble. Look at the mercy of Christ and believe.

Choose the promise. Repent. Believe in Christ. For in Him alone there is mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation with the God who is faithful to every word He has spoken.

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Scripture Reference Index

• Galatians 3 verses 15 to 18 Promise precedes law. The Abrahamic covenant is not annulled by the Mosaic law. Christ is the promised offspring.
• Deuteronomy 28 verses 45 to 57 Covenant curses foretold in concrete detail, including siege, famine, and the unthinkable horrors that follow.
• Jeremiah 1 verses 13 to 19 The boiling pot from the north. Babylon comes by divine decree. Jeremiah is fortified to announce judgment.
• Jeremiah 21 verses 1 to 10 God fights against Jerusalem. Yet a window of mercy remains. The way of life and the way of death is set before them.
• Lamentations 4 verses 9 to 10 The unbearable cost of covenant breach. Death by sword is better than starvation.
• Obadiah 1 verse 3 The pride of your heart has deceived you. Pride blinds and invites ruin.
• Psalm 137 verses 1 to 9 Exilic lament. Mockery by captors. Imprecation shaped by the law. A cry for the same horrors to fall on the oppressor that fell on them.
• Exodus 21 verses 22 to 25 "Eye for an eye" in the law of Moses. Judicial restraint. A check on runaway vengeance.
• Leviticus 24 verses 17 to 20 Life for life and like for like. Justice rendered in proportion under covenant courts.
• Deuteronomy 19 verses 18 to 21 Do to the false witness as he meant to do. Purge the evil from your midst.
• Matthew 5 verses 17 to 20 Jesus fulfills the Law and the Prophets to the smallest stroke. He does not abolish them.
• Matthew 5 verses 21 to 39 Jesus intensifies righteousness and takes ethics in the Law of Moses to a heart level.
• Matthew 8 verses 1 to 4 Jesus cleanses the leper. A sign of authority to make clean what the law declared unclean.
• Galatians 3 verses 10 to 14 Christ became a curse for us so that the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations.
• Galatians 3 verses 23 to 29 The law as guardian until Christ. In Him we are sons and daughters and heirs according to promise.
• First Corinthians 1 verses 18 to 25 The word of the cross is folly to the perishing and power to the saved. The wisdom of God overturns human pride.