In chapter 35 the prophet had threatened Seir and the sons of Edom who inhabited that land of natural fastnesses, so jealous of the favor shown by Jehovah to His people. Here he resumes the theme yet more fully.
“And the word of Jehovah came unto me saying, Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it, and say unto it, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; Behold, Ο mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate. I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am Jehovah. Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end.” (Ver. 1-5.)
The denunciation is all the more solemn as standing out in contrast with the immediately preceding promise of goodness and mercy to Israel. It was this very blessing by divine grace to the chosen people which from the beginning had raised the ever growing rancor of their kinsmen who looked sullenly on their predicted blessedness from their own heights of proud self-confidence. Soon were they to prove what it is to have Jehovah against one, yea, His hand stretched out to render desolate and waste. And so the issue declared; for the word and the hand of Jehovah were shortly after manifest in the desolation of their cities and themselves. Yet I may add, for the warning of any careless soul who may glance over these pages, that awful as it was thus to know that He who had so spoken and wrought is Jehovah, displayed in the chastening of Israel and the judgment of the heathen, incomparably more so must be His dealing with every soul in Christendom who trifles with the name and word of the Lord now.
God notices the feelings of the heart, and distinguishes too in judgment as everywhere else. There were many haughty enemies of Israel; and which of them was not disposed to injure the people of Jehovah's choice? But He fixes His eyes on “the old enmity” of Edom, and the relentlessness which was even more cruel than its wont in the day of their calamity, “at the time of the iniquity of the end.” Not an atom of generosity was there; natural feeling had turned to gall and wormwood. He who had been so basely dishonored by His people was chastening them in measure: who and what were the Edomites to avail themselves of it to crush without measure and destroy without mercy? “Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: since thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee. Thus will I make mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth. And I will fill his mountain with his slain men: in thy hills and in thy valleys, and in all thy rivers, shall they fall that are slain with the sword. I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return: and ye shall know that I am Jehovah.” (Ver. 6-9.) The emphasis is very strong, not only blood flowing and pursuing the blood-thirsty Edomites, but themselves made perpetual “desolations, their mountains and valleys filled with their slain, and their cities not to be restored: so should they know Him to be Jehovah.
Again, God heeds what men say as well as their feelings; as said the Lord still more comprehensively and profoundly and solemnly in Matt. 12 “Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas Jehovah was there: therefore, as I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I will even do according to thine anger, and according to thine envy which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them; and I will make myself known among them, when I have judged thee. And thou shalt know that I am Jehovah, and that I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid desolate, they are given us to consume. Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and have multiplied your words against me: I have heard them.” (Ver. 10-13.)
Is there no immediate lesson now from these declarations? Is there no analogy in Christendom? I believe there is, and one little considered or conceived among those who are bitterly jealous of what is really according to the word and Spirit of God at this day. They too forget that God is of a truth in His saints, and that their gathering to the Lord's name in dependence on the Holy Ghost's presence and action is the way in which to show our faith, and walk faithfully in this respect. Yet it would be hard to say what is so hated and dreaded by worldly Christians, yea, even where they are real if indifferent or opposed to the truth of God's assembly. This is not surprising in the clergy of all sorts, who naturally dislike what condemns their own position and existence as wholly unscriptural. It applies to all who support and defend a state of things which scripture proves unjustifiable. A bad conscience rouses the evil of the natural heart; and no words are too bitter, no insinuations too vile, against those who are at this moment cleaving to the revealed will of the Lord for the church. Let them know that the Lord will act according to the anger and envy Babylon feels against such as stand faithful. The proud Anti-church is judged when the marriage of the bride, the Lamb's wife, is come. What is said against the church and its privileges truly understood and acted on is no light sin in God's eyes: as with Israel of old, so now what is said contemptuously against His people, cleaving in their weakness to His grace and word, He regards as said against Himself: “I have heard.”
The chapter concludes with this sentence on the foe: “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate. As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee: thou shalt be desolate, Ο mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it; and they shall know that I am Jehovah.” (Vers. 14-15) Never was a falser judgment, though all was false, than that Jehovah will not yet restore and bless Israel, not for any deserts of theirs, but in His own mercy through the once rejected Messiah, who will as surely desolate the enemies of Israel as He will make good all that He promised to their fathers. But neither one nor other dealing is the gospel, which contrariwise is now gathering in indiscriminate grace from Jews and Gentiles for heavenly glory with Him who is not Savior only but head of the church on high. We know Him not after the flesh, nor by any judgments that He executes on Edom nor even by His mercy, but as dead, risen, and glorified in heaven according to the purposes of God once hidden but now revealed.