Here Revised Standard Version reflects the Hebrew sentence structure. This is very awkward in English and would be even more awkward in many other languages. Accordingly Good News Translation has broken the verse into two sentences and made the reason-result sequence in the second one clearer by including the words and so.
Your pride has deceived you the expression “The pride of your heart” (Revised Standard Version) uses “heart” in a figurative way. In languages that also speak of the heart as the seat of the emotions, the figure can be retained, as in the Jerusalem Bible (Jerusalem Bible) “Your pride of heart,” and New English Bible “Your proud, insolent heart.”
In other languages other parts of the body are considered the place where a person feels proud, and it is of course perfectly all right to use the term that is natural in the language. In languages where a figurative use is not acceptable, translators can follow Good News Translation and simply say Your pride or the equivalent. The meaning of this sentence is that the Edomites are proud and think that they cannot be defeated (as the rest of the verse explains); but they have deceived themselves, since they are in fact about to be defeated. This could be expressed in many different ways, such as “Because you are proud, you have deceived yourself (or, yourselves),” or “You have been proud of your strength, but you were wrong to think in this way.”
Your capital is a fortress of solid rock the reason for the pride was the strong position of the Edomites’ capital, Sela. The name “Sela” is also the Hebrew word for rock, and thus there is a play on words in the Hebrew. This wordplay cannot be retained in English, but Good News Translation tries to bring out something of its meaning by referring specifically to Your capital. The city of Sela was set on a high, rocky plateau and could be approached from only one direction. Thus it was like a fortress, and it was the ease with which they could defend their city that made the Edomites so proud.
A fortress here refers to a town with very strong walls. The walls of Sela are said to be made of solid rock and are therefore so strong that no enemy can break them. The Hebrew figure used here speaks of the Edomites living in cracks or “clefts of the rock” (Revised Standard Version). Some people may feel that this would be a very uncomfortable way to live, or a place suitable only for poor people. But the meaning of the figure is that the place where they live is very well protected and very hard to attack.
The Edomites say the last sentence of this verse “in their hearts” (see Revised Standard Version), which means to say to yourself or yourselves, or just “to think.”
Their home was high in the mountains, and this was why they said to themselves, Who can ever pull me down? This question is rhetorical, and in some languages it may need to be expressed as a negative statement, “No one will ever be able to pull me down.” In some cases, too, it would be more natural to drop the direct quotation and say “You think that no one will ever pull you down.” The idea that no one can pull the Edomites down means that no one can defeat them. It is expressed in this way to continue the picture of the people living high up among the rocks, who would have to be pulled down from the rocks in order to be defeated.
Some translators may feel that the connection between verses 2 and 3 is not very clear. Verse 2 states that God is going to punish Edom. Verses 3 and 4 say this again but give more detail. They say that even though the Edomites think they are so strong that no one can defeat them, nevertheless God will defeat them easily. It may be clearer in some languages to change the order of the parts of verse 3 to make the connection with verse 2 clearer. One may say “You are very proud, and think that no one can ever pull you down, because your capital is a fortress of solid rock and your home is high in the mountains. But you are wrong; your pride has deceived you.”
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on the Book of Obadiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .