NOTES for Oba 1:15
Obadiah's words, addressed by him to Judah's age-old enemy Edom, raise the question of what is sometimes called historical justice. At first glance it appears that the prophet has precisely this in mind when he says that on the day of Yahweh, the day of the Lord, the same thing will happen to Edom that happened to Judah, which suffered defeat to the delight of its old adversary that had taken advantage of the situation. What, then, is Obadiah speaking about when he mentions the day of Yahweh? The Day of Judgment? Possibly: apocalyptic moods were characteristic of his era. But sometimes the day of Yahweh, especially in the pre-exilic period, also meant times of any calamity that fell upon a country and a people, and the calamity itself was considered God's judgment.
It is quite possible that the prophet has precisely this in mind, foreseeing that soon after the defeat of Judah, over which Edom rejoices so much, Edom's turn will come as well. It would seem that we have before us the triumph of that very historical justice: the one who rejoiced at another's misfortune receives, in the literal sense, what he deserves, experiencing exactly what he had just rejoiced over while looking at his neighbor's disasters. But justice requires that the one who wants to restore justice must follow the Torah.
And revenge has never been a means of fulfilling the commandment. The Torah reluctantly allows it in individual cases, as a concession to the bad tradition of fallen humanity, setting certain boundaries for that tradition, but by no means encouraging it. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is not a prescription but a limitation, necessary so that for one gouged-out eye the one who gouged it out would not have both eyes gouged out, and for one knocked-out tooth, all thirty-two. Meanwhile, in the situation of which the prophet speaks, the principle "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is precisely what is present, a principle that from the Torah's point of view is the worst of all possible principles.
But in the fallen world this is precisely the principle that most often operates. And it presupposes not so much God's action as His nonintervention in the situation, what in theological language is usually called permission. Of course, this nonintervention is relative. God still does not give the warring sides complete freedom; otherwise in the end no one would be left alive on earth.
Yet such mutual destruction of people, of course, is not part of God's plan, and He does not want "compensations" of the kind Obadiah speaks about at all. But if the people of God turn away from God, they become like everyone else, one of the many peoples living on earth. And they submit to the laws of the fallen world common to all, which presume, in the form of "highest justice," the principle "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."