Obadiah: Doom For Edom

There are a lot of uncertainties concerning the authorship and date for the Book of Obadiah.  One of the early possibilities is that the prophecy was given by the "Obadiah" mentioned in I Kings 18, a righteous servant of Ahab's who met with the prophet Elijah.  It has been suggested that this servant was also the "third captain" who approached Elijah humbly in II Kings 1:13.  Obadiah may have indeed been written later by another "Obadiah" not mentioned elsewhere in the Bible, but I am intrigued by the possibility that the author was a contemporary of Elijah.  I like this theory, even if it's not provable!

Regardless, Obadiah is the shortest book in the Old Testament.  It is one chapter long, comprised of 21 verses.  The reason for its brevity may be that it basically has only one point: the nation of Edom is going to be punished and ultimately removed from the face of the earth for the way that it treated the Israelites in their hour of need.

Even though the Jews and the Edomites are related (the Jews descend from Abraham and Isaac through Jacob/Israel while Edom traces its lineage back to Jacob's twin brother Esau), there was a lot of bad blood between the two nations.  Edom lay to the south of Israel and was an inhospitable region.  The Edomites were considered a pretty rough-and-tough group of mountain people.

When a tragedy strikes Jerusalem and invaders carry off its treasures (as happened under Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon but also at several points earlier), Edom joins in.  They gloat, they loot, they rub it in, and they participate in Israel's humiliation at the hands of foreigners.  The Lord finds this betrayal despicable, and He judges Edom for it severely.  As Obadiah writes,

For the slaughter and violence done to your brother Jacob,

shame shall cover you,

and you shall be cut off forever.

   On the day that you stood aside,

on the day that strangers carried off his wealth,

and foreigners entered his gates

and cast lots for Jerusalem,

you too were like one of them.

   But you should not have gloated over your brother

on the day of his misfortune;

you should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah

on the day of their ruin;

you should not have boasted

on the day of distress.

You should not have entered the gate of my people

on the day of their calamity;

you should not have joined in the gloating over Judah’s disaster

on the day of his calamity;

you should not have looted his goods

on the day of his calamity.

  You should not have stood at the crossings

to cut off his fugitives;

you should not have handed over his survivors

on the day of distress (vs. 10-14).

For all of this, Edom is sentenced to disappear as a nation (vs., 16 and 18).  And the prophet foresees a time when the land of the Edomites will one day be ruled by the Jews (vs. 21).  The evil of the Edomites will be visited upon their own heads (vs. 15).