How are [the things] of Esau searched out! [how] are his hidden things sought up!
Ver. 6. How are the things of Esau searched out!] Or, as Drusius reads it, How are the posterity of Esau searched out! the men to the slaughter, the wealth to the spoil! what cunning and daring soldiers were these to pry into every corner for prey, and to pull them out of every lurking hole, where they might have been circumvented and butchered, in those dark and narrow places: this shows surely that they were both armed and animated by God himself. Confer Joel 2:6,9, but especially Jeremiah 49:10,11, where you have the full of that which is here but abridged; and therefore this verse hath not so much as an Athnach in it for distinction.
How are his hid things sought out!] i.e. his treasures and jewels, which have their name in Hebrew from hiding, because men used to secret and secure them with utmost care and diligence. See Matthew 13:44; hence they are called treasures of darkness, Isaiah 45:3; see Job 3:21. Abundance of this was found at Constantinople, taken by the Turks; so that the soldiers divided it among themselves by hatfuls, wondering at their wealth, and deriding their folly, that possessing so much, they would bestow so little in defence of themselves and their country, lost by their tenacity and niggardice. And the same is reported of Heidelberg. This that is here threatened against Edom was accordingly executed in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, saith Josephus; Nebuchadnezzar, in the 23rd year of his reign, invading and wasting Idumea. Ill-gotten goods prosper not. Men rake together their riches, and know not who shall gather them, Psalms 39:6. But, "let no man go beyond and defraud another: for God is the avenger of all such," 1 Thessalonians 4:6. They do best that renounce, with St Paul, those hidden things of dishonesty, 2 Corinthians 4:2, not walking in craftiness, nor making haste to be rich; for treasures of wickedness profit not, Proverbs 10:2; and when God comes by his judgments to turn the bottom of the bag upwards, as Joseph's steward once did, all our secret thefts will out. See Ecclesiastes 12:14 .