Obadiah 1:16

As ye have drunk. Some hold that the opening clause is addressed to the Israelites who had drank the cup of God’s anger for their sins (Isa. 51:17). God’s people had been punished; so would the heathen be. Others think that since Obadiah is dealing specially with the Edomites, these words refer to them. The phrase “upon my holy mountain” might then allude to scenes of revelry and drinking such as probably occurred at celebrations in Jerusalem after Judah’s downfall.

Continually. Heb. tamid. For a definition of tamid see on Dan. 8:11. Perpetuity cannot be intended, because after the drinking the nations will be “as though they had not been.” For tamid many Hebrew manuscripts read sabib, “round about.” The LXX reads “wine,” probably from chemer, somewhat similar in the Hebrew to tamid.

They had not been. The LXX reads, “they shall be as though not existing.” The expression denotes complete destruction. The nations in opposition to God would cease to exist.

The words of this expression have frequently been used to describe the ultimate fate of the wicked (see EGW comments at end of this chapter). The wicked will be totally annihilated. “Both soul and body” will be destroyed “in hell” (Matt. 10:28). This is the “second death” (Rev. 20:13-15). The Bible gives us no warrant for the doctrine of an ever-burning hell in which the lost will suffer punishment without end.

The destruction of the wicked will not be an act of arbitrary power on the part of God simply to show His authority and moral sovereignty. True, it will be a display of His sovereign power, but a display made necessary because the ungodly have regrettably formed such characters as will entirely unfit them for the sanctity and purity of the home of the redeemed. It will be a mercy to spare them an existence that would be most repulsive and hateful to their evil nature (see GC 36, 37; DA 107, 763, 764; SC 18).