What Does Obadiah 1:5 Mean?
If thieves came to you, if ravagers came by night, how you have been silenced! Would they not steal until they had enough? If grape-gatherers came to you, would they not leave a few grapes behind?
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
If thieves came to thee, if robbers by night, (how art thou cut off!) would they not have stolen till they had enough? if the grapegatherers came to thee, would they not leave some grapes?THE KEY
The verse measures Edom’s ruin against what even thieves and grape gatherers leave behind: what marks this loss is the absence of a remainder.
THE MEANING
The verse confronts you with a measure for devastation: thieves take until they are satisfied, but even grape gatherers leave gleanings. Its cry, “How art thou cut off!” names a loss that exceeds those ordinary limits, leaving no remnant to show where taking stops.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that total ruin is simply ordinary loss carried further: thieves and harvesters have limits, and the verse marks this destruction as beyond them.
THE ROOT
יַשְׁאִירוּ
yash'iru
GROWS FROM
שאר
Remain or be left over; in this form, leave something remaining.
“leave” in this verse is yash'iru. The verb centers what stays behind. The verse’s shock comes from measuring Edom against this expected remainder: even those who take produce cannot take all.
ALSO GROWS
she'erit: Remnant or remainder.
שְׁאֵרִית
It names what survives after a people or thing has been reduced, making the gleanings a sign of what remains.
nish'ar: Remained or was left.
נִשְׁאַר
This branch makes the verse’s question concrete: even after taking, something ordinarily remains.
בֹּצְרִים
botsrim
GROWS FROM
בצר
Cut off or make inaccessible; for grapes, gather by cutting clusters from the vine.
“grape-gatherers” in this verse is botsrim. The word names the grape gatherers through the act of cutting fruit away. The same root gives the word for a fortress, placing the cutting of a harvest beside the idea of a place made inaccessible.
ALSO GROWS
batsir: Vintage or grape harvest.
בָּצִיר
It shows that the gatherers’ work is a cutting that normally still leaves gleanings.
mivtsar: Fortress or stronghold.
מִבְצָר
Its sense of being made inaccessible echoes the security of a fortified place, while this verse asks what even the most thorough taking leaves behind.
THE PATTERN
A remnant is the line between being stripped and being wholly cut off.
And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor gather up every grape of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the bowed down and the sojourner. I am the LORD your God.Yet gleanings shall be left in it, as the beating of an olive tree; two or three olives on the head of the highest branch, four or five on the outermost branches that bear fruit, says the LORD God of Israel.So also now, in this present season, there is a remnant left behind, picked out by favor.THE THREAD
If grape-gatherers come to you, would they not leave some gleanings? If thieves by night, they will ruin until they have enough.Jeremiah repeats the same image and the Hebrew verb יַשְׁאִירוּ (yash’iru, “leave something remaining”), from שאר (sha’ar, “remain”). That shared root makes the leftover itself the measuring line: even thieves and grape gatherers leave something, so the emptiness named here exceeds ordinary taking.
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