Introduction to Obadiah

Title and authorship

The shortest book of the Old Testament gives its author four words: the vision of Obadiah. The name means servant of Yahweh, and it was a common one — Scripture knows a dozen bearers, among them the officer who hid a hundred prophets from Jezebel 1 Kings 18:3–4 — and no father, town, or office is given to tie the prophet to any of them. The anonymity suits the book. The messenger disappears entirely behind the message, and the message is not addressed to him, or even chiefly to Israel, but to Edom.

Date

The date hangs on one question: which sack of Jerusalem do verses 11 to 14 describe? The fullest fit is the Babylonian destruction, when lots were cast for the city and fugitives were cut down at the crossroads — for that day Edom's conduct is remembered in exactly Obadiah's terms elsewhere Psalms 137:7 Lamentations 4:21–22. An earlier occasion is argued, the raid under Jehoram when Philistines and Arabians carried off the king's house 2 Chronicles 21:16–17. The book itself names no king and no year; the reading with the strongest scriptural echo is the Babylonian one.

Backgrounds

Edom  is Esau Genesis 25:30, settled in the rock country of Seir south of the Dead Sea Genesis 36:8–9 — high country, its strongholds cut into the clefts, breeding the confidence the book opens against. Between the twin nations lay a long grudge: Edom met Israel's request for passage with an army Numbers 20:14–21, and the border wars never really ended. Yet the law had guarded the kinship from Israel's side — an Edomite was not to be abhorred, for he is your brother Deuteronomy 23:7. Obadiah's entire indictment stands on that one word. What Edom did at Jerusalem's fall would have been sin in any nation; in a brother it was treachery.

Edom's fame was wisdom — Teman's sages were proverbial Jeremiah 49:7, and Job's Eliphaz was a Temanite Job 2:11 — which gives the threat of verse 8 its edge: the thing Edom was known for is the first thing removed.

Theology and purpose

The book is the day of Yahweh in miniature. Its hinge is verse 15: as you have done, it will be done to you — deeds returning on the head that devised them, the measure a nation deals being the measure it is dealt. What begins as one nation's sentence widens without warning to all nations, and the book ends at the summit the whole Bible ends on: the kingdom will be Yahweh's Revelation 11:15.

Two threads carry the theology. Pride of heart deceives — the rock fortress and the eagle's nest are answered by a plain I will bring you down. And brotherhood is not optional — the charge is not that Edom attacked but that Edom stood aloof, gloated, looted, and blocked the road while a brother bled. Zion, meanwhile, holds escape Obadiah 1:17 — the promise Joel takes up in the very words, as Yahweh has said Joel 2:32: one prophet citing another inside Scripture itself.

Additional notes

Note — the Jeremiah parallel. A third of this book runs closely parallel to the oracle against Edom in Jeremiah: verses 1 to 4 with Jeremiah 49:14–16, verses 5 and 6 with Jeremiah 49:9–10. Which prophet spoke first, or whether both deliver an earlier oracle again, Scripture does not say, and the book's argument does not depend on the answer. What the doubling itself declares is settledness: when a word is repeated, the thing is established by God Genesis 41:32. Edom's sentence was published twice.

Outline

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