The haftara for Parashat Vayishlach, the book of Ovadya, foretells the eventual downfall of the kingdom of Edom, and lists a number of crimes for which this kingdom was deserving of such a fate.
Towards the beginning of this prophecy, Ovadya rhetorically asks, "Even if thieves came upon you, nighttime marauders – how were you destroyed? Wouldn't they steal only what they needed? And even if vintagers came to you, wouldn't they leave gleanings?" (1:5). The prophet expresses his astonishment over the complete ruin of what was once a powerful and prosperous empire. Even when plunderers ransack a city, they don't leave it empty; they take only that for which they could conceivably have some need. And when vintagers clean a vineyard of its grapes, they leave behind the undesirable produce. The Edomite kingdom, however, as the prophet foresees, would be left in utter ruin, which nothing remaining. Ovadya expresses this bewilderment after describing the kingdom's hubris and arrogant sense of security (verse 3). History would prove that Edom is not only vulnerable, but also headed towards extraordinary devastation.
Rav Mendel Hirsch, in his commentary to the haftarot, draws an insightful distinction between the two analogies drawn by the prophet in the aforementioned verse – thieves, and vintagers. The first analogy involves people who have no legal right to the property they seize, who lawlessly and forcefully capture the desired goods. The harvesters, by contrast, are of course invited into the vineyard, summoned for the very purpose of removing the produce.
Accordingly, Rav Hirsch suggests, the prophet here speaks of two groups of enemies that would visit destruction upon the Edomite empire. First, the kingdom would fall prey to the "nighttime marauders," people with no prior association with Edom and thus no justification at all for launching their assault. Additionally, however, Edom would be overrun by "vintagers," nations that it had "invited" into its kingdom through the wrongs it committed against them. After many years of enduring the cruelty of Edomite oppression, these peoples are perhaps justified in raiding the kingdom to "harvest" its "produce." Yet, even they are not justified in seizing the "gleanings," in clearing the country out completely.
Even in a justified war, there are basic limits on the extent of damage that may be inflicted upon the enemy. And so even the "vintagers," those who perhaps have a legitimate right to invade Edom, should know to at least leave behind "gleanings." However, in retribution for Edom's own ruthless and unrestrained oppression of other peoples, it, too, will one day lose even its "gleanings," and will suffer the same humiliation and destitution that it had visited upon others over the course of its history.