Edom: Missing From the End-Time Drama?
The Middle East is undergoing momentous changes and prophetic events are unfolding quickly. An article from the Washington Post Newspaper, reprinted front-page in The Detroit News on September 1, 2025, chronicled the developing events in the MidEast. “The scale of the destruction [in Gaza] is massive and unlike anything we’ve seen before, even within the context of Gaza,” said Yousef Munayer, senior fellow at the Arab Center in Washington. President Trump stated, “Gaza…it’s like a massive demolition site.” The United Nations estimates that 90% of the housing in the enclave has been destroyed, and that number is rising.
Asked later that day in an interview on Fox News if Gaza’s Palestinian residents could return after reconstruction, Trump said, “No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing elsewhere.”
Trump has established the GREAT Trust, an acronym for “Gaza Reconstruction, Economic Acceleration and Transformation,” which would turn Palestine into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” as Trump put it.
Trump stated, “You’re going to have stability in the Middle East for the first time. And the Palestinians, or the people that live now in Gaza, will be living beautifully in another location.” The Post article says the world would witness “removing Palestinians from Gaza—through persuasion, compensation or force.”
Each Palestinian who chooses to leave would be given a $5,000 cash payment and subsidies to cover four years of rent elsewhere, as well as a year of food.” Is this legal? Yes, “…under the customary international law doctrine of Uti Possidetis Juris (Latin for ‘as you possess under law’) and limits on Palestinian autonomy under the 1993 Oslo agreements, Israel has administrative control over the occupied territories and the power to [take it or] give it away.”
In the face of this the Christian churches have remained strangely silent concerning Mideast events and their bearing on Bible prophecy. In the well-known (and mislabeled) “Russian Chapters of Ezekiel,” comprising the 36th through 38th chapters of the prophet’s book, we find important clues to end-time events.
Ezekiel 36:2, 5 tells us, “Thus says the Lord God: Because the enemy has said over you, Aha! and, The ancient heights have become our possession…Therefore thus says the Lord God: Surely in the fire of My hot jealousy have I spoken against the rest of the nations and against all Edom, who have given to themselves My land with wholehearted joy and with uttermost contempt, that they might empty it out and possess it for a prey and a spoil.” (Amp) The King James Version translates, “the ancient high places [or sacred localities] have become our possession.”
The Jameson, Faucett and Brown Commentary explains, “The enemy—Edom, the singled-out representative of all God’s foes—with a shout of exultation, ‘Aha!’ had claimed, as the nearest kinsman of Israel (the brother of their father Esau), his vacated inheritance; as much as to say, the so-called ‘everlasting’ inheritance of Israel and of the ‘hills,’ which typified the unmoved perpetuity of it has come to an end, in spite of the promise of God, and has become ‘ours’.”
Reformation leader John Calvin (1509-1564) wrote, “Now it is certain that this prophecy has never been completed: we know that but a small portion of the land was possessed by the Jews.”
Dr. Harry A. Ironside (1876-1951) wrote, “This, no doubt, goes on to the time of the end; for it is just before the kingdom is established that Edom’s power is to be utterly broken. There will be a people of his lineage dwelling in Idumea [Edom] in the day of the last great coalition against Israel; but they will be overthrown: and when the rest of the world is brought into blessing under Messiah’s rule, they will be blotted out from under heaven.”
A related prophecy concerning end-time Edom is found in the book of Obadiah 1:18, 21: “The house of Jacob shall be a fire and the house of Joseph a flame, but the house of Esau shall be stubble; they shall kindle and burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor of the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken it…And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD’S.”
This is clearly an end-time prophecy. Yet a stark difference of opinion exists among Christian theoreticians. The Believers Bible Commentary emphatically states: “Today there is no trace of any who could be identified as an Edomite. Obadiah’s prediction that there would be no survivor has been fulfilled.” Similarly, Rev. Chuck Smith, the former president of Dispensationalist “Dallas Theological Seminary,” rhetorically asked, “Have you ever met an Edomite?” A good correct answer would be, “not under that name!”
Frederick Albert Tatford (1901-1986), a Dispensationalist Plymouth Brethren leader, summarized the story of Edom’s demise saying, “…the Edomites seem to have disappeared altogether in the first century A.D…Today there is no trace of any who could be identified as an Edomite.” Again, I say: “not under that name!”
In stark contrast to these above modern opinions, the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who was a first-hand witness to events in that era, recorded, “[John] Hyrcanus took Dora and Marissa, cities of Idumea, and subdued all the Idumeans; and permitted them to stay in that country, if they would circumcise their genitals, and make use of the laws of the Jews; and they were so desirous of living in the country of their forefathers, that they submitted to the use of circumcision, and of the rest of the Jewish ways of living; at which time therefore this befell them, that they were hereafter no other than Jews.” (Antiq. lib. xiii, ch. 9). There is no one who is called an Edomite today because the Edomites became Jews, adopting the religion and nationhood of Judah.
What do Jewish scholars say? A number of leading Jewish theologians believe that Ezekiel’s prophecy relates to events at the end of the age and dawn of the millennium. This makes sense because the prophecy appears just before the last great battle described in Ezekiel 38.
The Jerusalem Talmud (T. Hieros. Avoda Zara, fol. 40. 3.) explains, “in future times (the world to come, the days of the Messiah), is it not said, ‘and saviours shall come upon Mount Zion, to judge the mount of Esau?’”
Maimonides (Hilchot Melachim, c. 11. sect. 1.), quoting the passage in Numbers 24:18, “Seir [or Edom] also shall be a possession for his enemies,” adds, by way of explanation, “this is the King Messiah, of whom it is said, ‘and saviours shall come upon Mount Zion’.”
Kimchi and Ben Melech, Medieval Jewish scholars, say, “these are the King Messiah and his companions, the seven shepherds and eight principal men, Micah 5:5.” Aben Ezra says the words refer to time to come; according to Baalhatturim on Genesis 32:4; they will be fulfilled about the end of the sixth Millennium, when they expect the Messiah; and they are applied to times of the Messiah both by ancient and more modern Jews.
Eighteenth-century expositor John Gill remarked on Obadiah 1:21, “The work and business of these saviours will be, to judge the mount of Esau; to take vengeance on the Edomites, for their ill usage of the children of Judah, as the Jewish commentators generally interpret it.” John Gill believed that “Esau and Edom signify antichrist…yea, these saviours may include the Christian princes, that shall pour out the vials of God’s wrath upon the antichristian states…”
The Keil & Delitzsch Commentary adds, “The fulfilment of the threat in Obadiah 1:18 we cannot find, however, in the subjugation of the Edomites by the Maccabeans, and the devastating expedition of Simon the Gerasene…For even if this prophecy of Ezekiel may have been fulfilled in the events just mentioned, we are precluded from understanding Obadiah 1:18, and the parallel passages, Amos 9:11-12, and Numbers 24:18, as referring to the same events, by the fact that the destruction of Edom, and the capture of Seir by Israel, are to proceed, according to Numbers 24:18, from the Ruler to arise out of Jacob (the Messiah), and that they were to take place, according to Amos 9:11-12, in connection with the raising up of the fallen hut of David, and according to Obadiah, in the day of Jehovah, along with and after the judgment upon all nations. Consequently the fulfilment of Obadiah 1:17-21 can only belong to the Messianic times, and that in such a way that it commenced with the founding of the kingdom of Christ on the earth, advances with its extension among all nations, and will terminate in a complete fulfilment at the second coming of our Lord.”
Dispensationalist leader Hal Lindsey, in “The Late Great Planet Earth” said, “There’s nothing that remains to be fulfilled before Christ could catch [you] up to be with Him.” (p. 134) If so, the people who now control “the ancient high places” are the Edom prophesied by Ezekiel who would control the land at the end of this age.
