What Does Obadiah 1:14 Mean?
Do not stand in the breach, to cut off the ones who slip free from him. Do not hand over those left behind in the day of the narrow place.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that did escape; neither shouldest thou have delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress.THE KEY
The verse names violence as the sealing of escape: the one who gets away is cut down, and the one who remains is handed over.
THE MEANING
You are addressed where another person’s escape route narrows: the one who gets away can be cut down, while the one who remains can be handed over to danger. The verse treats control of that passage as part of the violence itself, in the very day someone is pressed into distress.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that blocking an escape or handing a survivor to another’s power is separate from the violence; the verse names both as participation in it.
THE ROOT
תַּסְגֵּר
tasgēr
GROWS FROM
סגר
s-g-r
Shut or close; in this verb form, hand someone over or consign them to another’s control.
“Do not hand over” in this verse is tasgēr. English makes “delivered up” sound like a transfer, but the Hebrew verb belongs to the root for shutting or closing. Here, handing a survivor over closes their remaining way out.
ALSO GROWS
sāgar: to shut, close
סָגַר
This concrete action lies beneath the verse’s verb for handing someone over.
misgeret: enclosure, frame
מִסְגֶּרֶת
This related word carries the root’s sense of closing something within bounds, echoing the way the survivor is delivered into another’s control.
צָרָה
tsarah
GROWS FROM
צרר
ts-r-r
To bind, press, or confine; distress as being pressed into a narrow place.
“the day of the narrow place” in this verse is tsarah. “Distress” here is tsarah, from the language of being pressed or bound into narrowness. That sound-shape ties the day of danger to the closing of the escape route around people trying to get through.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: narrow, tight; also an adversary
צַר
It makes the verse’s distress feel like constriction, with danger pressing in.
metsar: a strait, a narrow place; distress
מֵצַר
This related form appears in Psalm 118:5, where distress is answered by being set in a large place.
פְּלִיטָיו
pelitav
GROWS FROM
פלט
p-l-t
To slip away or escape.
“the ones who slip free from him” in this verse is pelitav. The word translated “those that did escape” names people by the very act of getting away. The verse shows them being targeted after they have escaped, as though their passage to safety is being reversed.
ALSO GROWS
palit: a fugitive, one who escapes
פָּלִיט
This is the person named in the verse: someone who has slipped away from danger.
peletah: escape, deliverance, surviving remnant
פְּלֵיטָה
It names the escape itself, tying the person who gets away to the path of survival.
THE PATTERN
At the point where a vulnerable person’s route to safety can be blocked or opened, power is revealed by whether it traps them or preserves their passage.
Do not press a sojourner, for you know his living soul, since you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.If you hold back from snatching away those seized toward death, and those bent toward the slaughter.Then the disciples took him by night, and lowered him down along the wall in a basket.THE THREAD
From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.Obadiah’s “distress” and this verse’s “distress” share the Hebrew narrowness family: trouble is pictured as being pressed into a tight place. Obadiah shows a hand closing the route; Psalm 118:5 answers with the image of being brought into spaciousness.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us