NOTES for Eze 35:1-15
At first glance, the prophecy offered in today's reading seems entirely imbued with hatred and revenge against Judea's age-old enemy, Edom, whose capital before the Babylonian invasion stood on Mount Seir, mentioned in the passage. Of course, the Jews had grounds for reproaching their neighbours: Edom really did exploit Judea's plight, joining the Babylonian army in plundering the neighbouring country.
It is no wonder that Edom's rulers rejoiced: at last they had managed, if through someone else's hands, to finish off an old enemy who, they thought, would never recover from the defeat inflicted on it (v. 10). Their triumph was short-lived, however: soon after Judea, Edom's turn came. It was conquered by Babylonia and disappeared from the political map forever.
But the point is evidently not merely the prophet's wish to see the enemy laid low and his own people avenged. Perhaps it is not even injustice as such, although the conduct of Edom's rulers was undoubtedly, for Judea, effectively a stab in the back. Yet Edom was not Judea's ally, so there is no question here of any particular malice, still less of betrayal.
Of course, rejoicing in one's neighbours' misfortune is wrong, but history, alas, knows many such cases. Indeed, it knows not a single example of the neighbours of a defeated people failing to exploit their weakness when they had the opportunity. The point apparently lies elsewhere: by acting as they did, Edom's rulers encroached not only upon the moral law, but upon God (v. 10).
One might think that the Edomites, who did not belong to God's people and were pagans, would not have had to take the God of the Jews into account. Judging by the words quoted in the passage, however, this was not quite so. Apparently, they regarded their triumph over Judea as the triumph of their god over the God of the Jews, since the Jews had been defeated despite considering themselves God's people. If so, each nation has its own god and its own advantage to pursue; there is no justice common to all, only the interests of one's own people or tribe. Defending those interests then becomes, in the defenders' eyes, the highest justice.
National and tribal selfishness has existed in every age. Such collective selfishness is as convenient for fallen humanity as individual selfishness, but, unlike the latter, it is much easier to justify both to oneself and to others. The remedy for it is the national catastrophe it brings about: conflicts of interest inevitably lead to war, in which the strongest wins, and history knows no nation or state that has never suffered defeat. Of course, even defeat in itself cannot guarantee spiritual healing, but it can at least make people reflect and begin to reassess their national values. Such a reassessment may also become the first step on the path to conversion.