Obadiah 1:21 Commentary and Bible Study

The Hebrew for ‘saviours’ is deliverers, rescuers. ‘Saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD'S.’ This is a verse that might seem a little mysterious, but we are still talking about the final judgment in terms of the period that leads up to it, and not the judgment itself. Even before that final judgment falls there will be deliverers, saviours, come up onto Mount Zion. Calvin sees these as referring back to the judges sent to deliver Israel long ago. These are judges bringing conviction on mount Edom and causing the people to be delivered. That too is a picture of this present age. We are those deliverers we are those saviours. Of course Christ is the only Saviour who suffered and died to procure salvation. But the apostles and indeed all believers are the deliverers, the saviours, in that we are going about in the world preaching the gospel, and witnessing to Jesus Christ and telling of the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation with God. This world which is going to be under judgment is full of people who don't seem to realise and don't seem to know that their spurning of God is going to cost them dearly. They seem to be unaware that the day is coming for each one and then ultimately for the whole world, when we will be under judgment. And as deliverers we are saying, ‘Come into the fold that you have despised and spurned and come to Jesus Christ, the only place of safety. Seek him and find him, and you will be safe, and you will be his property and his delight, and subject to his care. That is the message of Obadiah. It is about literal Edom, but it is a scenario of all of time: the fate that awaits the world, and the joy and peace and forgiveness which is the lot of the church, those people who are true believers in Jesus Christ.