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replacement, not restoration
Obadiah 17-21 (JDV)
Obadiah 1:17 But there will be a deliverance on Mount Zion, and it will be holy; the house of Jacob will dispossess those who dispossessed them.
Obadiah 1:18 Then the house of Jacob will be a blazing fire, and the house of Joseph, a burning flame, but the house of Esau will be stubble; Jacob will set them on fire and consume Edom. Therefore, no survivor will remain of the house of Esau, for Yahveh has spoken.
Obadiah 1:19 People from the Negev will possess the hill country of Esau; those from the Judean foothills will possess the land of the Philistines. They will possess the territories of Ephraim and Samaria, while Benjamin will possess Gilead.
Obadiah 1:20 The exiles of the Israelites who are in Halah and who are among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath as well as the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad will possess the cities of the Negev.
Obadiah 1:21 Saviors will ascend Mount Zion to rule over the hill country of Esau, but the kingdom will be Yahveh’s.
replacement, not restoration
A theology of restoration is growing in popularity today. It says that God’s purpose in the final judgment is restoration — that hell will purge the sinner from sin, but that all will be eventually restored. As appealing as such an idea might be, it fails to correspond to what Scripture says about God’s judgment. From this passage we discover that Edom will be judged, destroyed by a consuming fire from God, and the land they occupy with other people. What happened to Edom serves as an example of how God treats individuals who consistently rebel against his commands.