⁴ tn Heb “searched out” (so NASB, NRSV); cf. NIV “pillaged,” TEV “looted,” NLT “found and taken.” This pictures the violent action of conquering warriors ransacking the city in order to loot and plunder its valuables.

⁵ sn The delay in naming the Lord as cause is dramatic. The natural assumption upon hearing the passive verb in the previous line, “it was dealt severely,” might well be the pillaging army, but instead the Lord is named as the tormentor.

² tn The tense and nuance of the verb translated “pillage” are different from those of the verb in Obad 5. There the verb is the imperfect of גָּנַב (ganav, “to steal”). Here the verb is the perfect of a verb meaning “ruin” or “spoil.” The English versions and commentaries, however, almost all render the verb here much the same way as in Obad 5. The nuance must mean they “ruin, destroy” (by stealing) only as much as they need (Heb “their sufficiency”), and the verb is used as metonymical substitute, effect for cause. The perfect must be some kind of a future perfect: “would they not have destroyed only…” The negative question is carried over by ellipsis from the preceding lines.