ABSTRACT
Regardless of that debate, the structural features and formulae of the oracles require some discussion. Variations within the series are also interesting from a synchronic point of view. A number of distinct structural elements are usually identified. If one is to favour a date after the fall of Judah, the poem of 1:3-2:16 still has its share of rhetorical traps. The traps play on the tendency of readers to reduce options in interpreting enigmatic phrases, while as the poem progresses, other constructions and intertextual allusions allow an ever increasing number of options, ultimately leading to the possible inversion of earlier suppositions. The disorder of multiple meanings is potentially homeopathic. It allows the reader to find new resolutions to real world situations. A number of interpreters notice a connection between this oracle and traditions about Israel and Edom sharing an ancestor.
