Ezekiel 35King James Version
A burden on Mount Seir (Edom). Because you said of Israel and Judah, 'These two nations shall be mine, and we will possess them,' when the glory of the Lord was still there, therefore I will make thee desolate.
Oracle against Mount Seir (Edom): because Edom cherished ancient hatred against Israel and rejoiced at her desolation, helping Babylon carve her up, Edom will become a perpetual desolation. The whole earth will rejoice at Edom's fall as Edom rejoiced at Israel's. The mountains of Edom will run with blood, and Edom will know that God is the LORD.
Ancient grudges pursued at a vulnerable neighbor's worst moment receive their own judgment, and the glee over another's catastrophe is its own condemnation.
5: "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." Timing the attack for the moment of maximum vulnerability is treated as the gravest form of the offense.
Around 585 BC. Edom had participated actively in the sack of Jerusalem, blocking escape routes and selling refugees into slavery (per Obadiah 1:14). The wound was recent and raw. By the time of this oracle, Edom had already begun settling in the now-empty Judean highlands.
Mount Seir and Edom personified; Israel as the victim of Edom's opportunism; the LORD who will make Edom a perpetual waste; the whole earth that will eventually rejoice at Edom's fall.
Edom's condemnation in chapter 35 is paired with Israel's restoration in chapter 36: the land cannot be restored to Israel while Edom claims to have inherited it by conquest. The 'two nations, one land' tension runs through the Psalms (137), Obadiah, Malachi, and into the New Testament period when the Edomites (Idumeans) had actually occupied Judah.
For when betrayal comes from those who should have helped, especially from someone who shared your history. Edom and Israel were brothers, and the betrayal of a brother in crisis carries its own particular weight. The chapter does not let that pass without naming it.
1Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it,
3And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate.
4I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.
5Because 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:
6Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee.
7Thus will I make mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth.
8And I will fill his mountains 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.
9I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
10Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas the LORD was there:
11Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, 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.
12And thou shalt know that I am the LORD, 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.
13Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and have multiplied your words against me: I have heard them.
14Thus saith the Lord GOD; When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate.
15As 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, O mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it: and they shall know that I am the LORD.