Obadiah 1:2

Obadiah shows here that the Edomites must be subjected to captivity because of their pride and the enmity they held against their brothers. In a different sense he says that the devil is made least, as the words that follow are extremely suitable to him as well.

(Version 2, verse 2) Behold, I have made you a little one among the nations: you are very contemptible. The pride of your heart has lifted you up, dwelling in the clefts of the rock, exalting your throne, saying in your heart: Who will bring me down to the ground? If you elevate yourself like an eagle, and if you place your nest among the stars: from there I will bring you down, says the Lord. LXX: Behold, I have made you a little one among the nations: you are very dishonored. The pride of your heart has lifted you up, you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, exalting your dwelling and saying in your heart: Who will bring me down to the ground? Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord. Jeremiah, of whom we have mentioned above, agrees in almost the same words, saying: Behold, I have made you small among the nations; you are utterly despised among mankind. Your arrogance has deceived you, and the pride of your heart, you who live in the clefts of the rock, who strive to grasp the height of the hill: though you soar aloft like the eagle, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord. In prophetic interpretation, we must follow our custom, that first we lay the foundations of history, and then, if possible, we raise lofty towers and the peaks of roofs. 'O Edom,' He says, 'though you are the least among all the nations around, and small in comparison to the other peoples, you rise up in arrogance beyond your strength. And though you dwell in caves, or rather in the rocky caverns, humble and poor, and not possessing the lofty roofs of buildings, you are lifted up as an eagle to the heights, and you swell with such pride in your thoughts, that you believe yourself to dwell among the stars. Even if you could penetrate the heights of the heavens beyond nature, I would bring you down from there and bring you to the earth,' says the Lord God. But what is added in Jeremiah, and which you strive to understand, reveals the height of the hill, representing Mount Zion, and through this either the city of Jerusalem itself or the temple built within it. As for the eagle, it is known by those who discuss the nature of birds that it flies higher than all other birds. It is said to have such a keen sight that while it soars above the motionless sea with its steady wings, it can see fish swimming from such a great height and, when they are near the shore, descend like a weapon and drag its captured prey with its wings to the shore. If we learn history, let us follow spiritual intelligence. Although you, o heretic, may seem great and despise the smallness of the Church, you are nonetheless small among the nations, and contemptible, and not only contemptible, but also very contemptible with arrogance. The pride of your heart has lifted you up. For who among heretics is not lifted up in pride, despising the simplicity of the Church and considering faith as ignorance? Dwelling in the clefts of the rock, and exalting his throne. Although the rock is often seen as representing the Lord Himself or His steadfastness (hence the prophet says, He set my feet upon a rock (Ps. XXXIX, 5)) and is also said to Peter, You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church (Mat. I, 8), yet it is often interpreted in the opposite sense: I will take away the stony heart, and will give you a heart of flesh (Ezek. XXXVI, 26). And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham (Matt. 3:9). Especially here, where it does not say dwelling upon the rock, upon which the wise builder builds his house, but in the clefts of the rock, in order to signify the heresies that arise from Christ the rock and from the Church. Moreover, what follows, ‘Exalting your throne,’ and, ‘Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?’ reveals the arrogance of a heretical mind, confident in its mysteries and its secrets, and insofar as it is able (but we should take this hyperbolically) promising itself the kingdoms of heaven. Where the Apostle writes to such people: 'Now you reign without us, and I wish you would reign, so that we may also reign with you' (I Cor. IV, 8). So also David speaks: 'They have set their mouth in heaven, and their tongue has passed through the earth' (Psalm LXXII, 9). If therefore they are exalted, like the eagle (for they also promise themselves a likeness to eagles, which are accustomed to gather around the Lord's body), and if they have set their nest among the stars, from there I will bring them down, says the Lord. For just as a father of a family, while sleeping, an enemy man oversows darnel among good seed (Matthew 13): so does that great eagle, (Ezekiel 17, 3), with its large wings, long body members, full of feathers and variety, which has the way of entering into Lebanon, and takes from the top of the cedar, and plants on many waters, so that shoot out into a vineyard, as plantings among the stars of the Church, concerning which it is also said in another place: But the just shall shine as the brightness of the firmament (Matthew 13, 43), they shall set their nest. I said above that this very thing, contrary to the flesh, can be understood as its strength being diminished in the coming of Christ, and it is contemptible, subject to the soul's rule, and is in vain exalted when it dwells in the caves of the rock, either in our senses or in our thoughts, and it desires to dominate the soul, exalting its own throne, and not believing that its works can be overcome. It is said to this, that although it exalts itself and imitates the lofty eagle, and deceives many of the saints, nevertheless it is overcome and cast down by the Lord. What we understand in heretics and in the flesh can also be understood against the Jews.