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Obadiah begins his book by stating that he only intended to prophesy about Edom: “Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom” (vs. 1).
Obadiah reminded his audience that the Edomite problem had persisted over many generations. He often referred to Edom, not by the contemporary name of her cities, but as “the house of Esau” or “Mount Esau.”
Obadiah was most likely composed after the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem. The prophet wrote as if he were an eyewitness to the horrific events. Jeremiah 49 includes an oracle against Edom with some of Obadiah’s same language. It is unclear which prophet influenced the other, but they lived around the same time. Amos’s book starts and ends with a message for the Edomites, as well. So, why is Obadiah’s book placed after Amos in the order of the canonized books, if Amos probably ministered 200 years before Obadiah?
When the books of the prophets were assigned their traditional order, they were organized by common theme more than by chronology. Wherever possible, one Minor Prophet book picks up where the previous one left off, even if it is not always obvious. Remember that in the Jewish Tanakh, the Minor Prophets are the Book of the Twelve. Amos, a prophet best known for his calls for justice, began his book with seven judgment speeches against Israel’s neighbors. Out of all seven, Edom gets the most press time in Amos, partially because of Edom’s propensity for kidnapping Judahites and Israelites. Edom was called out for her gratuitous violence, continuous rage, and unchecked fury (Amos 1:11).
Edom’s remnant will be incorporated into Israel’s possessions in the Messianic Age, as prophesied by Amos (Amos 9:12). Therefore, Obadiah’s oracle, which is only about the Edomites, naturally picks up on Amos’s closing Edomite theme.
Obadiah’s oracle is a mere 291 words. In the first nine verses, he systematically calls Edom out for every area of false pride. They had misplaced their confidence in their natural security, their wealth and agriculture, their military alliances, and their own wisdom. In the end though, Obadiah warned, none of those things would prevent their destruction. The latter part of Obadiah names the reasons for Edom’s punishment and how God would deliver it.
Obadiah proclaimed, “your proud heart has deceived you, you that live in the clefts of the rock, whose dwelling is in the heights” (vs. 3). Positioned on the protective cliffs of the natural rock fortresses in the mountain terrain, Edom felt impregnable.
I was in my first trimester with our oldest child when I had the chance to visit Petra in Jordan. I walked the 800 steps to the monastery. As the sun set over the rose-red city, I was struck by the brilliance and permanence of the site. So, when I read Obadiah, and his condemnation of Edom’s pride of place, I get it. Had I grown up in the House of Esau, I might also have had a sense of misplaced trust in the rock fortress around me. But Obadiah warned that even if the kingdom’s “nest is set among the stars,” (vs. 4) God would snatch them down. A nation opposing God’s will is not safe.
Obadiah warned Edom that the robbers and pillagers would not spare even the hidden treasures. They would completely raid the vineyards on her slopes, leaving no gleanings behind. The prophet’s dramatization showed the inevitability and thoroughness of her destruction.
Obadiah also prophesied that Edom’s allies would betray and turn against her. Instead of coming to Edom’s aide in the face of an attack, they would set a trap, or they would be too weak to help form a coalition. The advancing Babylonians would swallow them all up.
Biblical clues give the idea that Edom had a contingent of wise elders. In the book of Job, the wise friend Eliphaz was from Teman (Job 2:11). Likely because of exposure to international customs and lore, Teman, a trading center in Edom, developed a robust wisdom tradition. Obadiah’s oracle predicted that on the Day of Yahweh, Edom’s wise people would face destruction, and the knowledge of Mount Esau would be eliminated (vs. 8).
In the middle portion of Obadiah, the prophet cites the reasons for all the punishments that would fall upon Edom: this was the wrath of Yahweh judging Edom for its violence towards Judah. Obadiah used “your brother Jacob” (vs. 10) as a synonym for the Kingdom of Judah, as a way of once again reminding Edom of the broken fraternal covenant.
Commentaries on Obadiah take one of two positions on dating the book’s composition: an early date (852-716 BCE) or a late date (587 BCE). The argument for an early date comes from the Chronicler’s description of two Edomite revolts. One revolt happened during the reign of King Jehoram (2 Chron. 21:8-10), and the other was during the reign of King Ahaz (2 Chron. 28:16-18). In the second incident, the Edomites carried away prisoners.
The argument for the later date of Obadiah, around 587 BCE, is based on the fact that many other biblical passages correlate with the Edomites’ pillaging of Jerusalem after the Babylonian takeover. While the Edomite revolt in the days of Jehoram gets a passing mention by the Chronicler, other verses describe the Edomites gloating over Jerusalem’s ruins (Ps. 137:7; Jer. 49:1-16; Lam. 4:21; Isa. 34:5-17; Ezek. 25:12-14, 35:5; Amos 1:11). Each of these passages tell the same story of the Edomites’ vulturous behavior: pillaging what remained of Jerusalem and encroaching into the land of Judah. The Edomites obstructed the path of Jerusalem refugees who were fleeing east and surrendered them to the Babylonians. Edom’s greed overshadowed their empathy for the ruined city. Obadiah’s ultimate insult against the Edomites was the accusation that they had behaved “like one of them,” equating the Edomites with the Babylonians.
I lean toward the later date, which renders Obadiah as an eyewitness to Jerusalem’s fall, or what he calls Judah’s misfortune, ruin, distress, and calamity (vs. 12-13). Obadiah stretches the Hebrew vocabulary to its limits for synonyms to describe devastation. His language is so intense that the wound seems fresh. His outline is better suited for one of the most horrific moments in Jewish history than for a smaller Edomite revolt against Judah. Obadiah’s description of Edom’s treatment of the refugees parallels other accounts specific to the tragedy of the Babylonian siege. He chided, “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. 14). Picking through a city’s remains and stealing goods was offensive enough, but blocking escapees from finding safety was especially deplorable.
The last third of Obadiah reiterates the reason for Edom’s coming punishment. This was divine retribution: “As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head” (vs. 15). Even though Yahweh allowed for Jerusalem’s destruction because of her unfaithfulness, it was not the prerogative of Edom to gloat over her calamity. As a result, Yahweh would hand Edom her own cup of Yahweh’s wrath, and she would “drink and gulp [it] down” (vs. 16).
Obadiah ends with the triumphant return of a surviving remnant of the “house of Jacob.” The saving of a righteous remnant, and the promise of their return and repossession of the land is an eschatological theme that we already know from Hosea, Joel, and Amos. By the time of Obadiah’s witness, prophets had been speaking of a remnant for 200 years.
Betrayal of Edom
The prophets were placing their hope partially in the short-term and partially in the distant future, the Messianic Age. In the Day of Yahweh, Judah would be victorious, expansive, and no longer vulnerable to her enemy neighbors, such as Edom. The prophecies at the end of Obadiah describe a restored Israel that would push to the north, south, east, and west. They would take back the Negev, the Shephelah, and Ephraim, the territory that once belonged to the 10 northern tribes. Obadiah ends, after describing the full extent of the restored Judah, with the promise: “the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.”
Imagine the exiled people of Judah reading the prophecies of Obadiah, soon after Jerusalem’s destruction. Licking their wounds and recalling the betrayal of Edom, they would have questioned why Yahweh allowed Mount Esau to survive while Mount Zion perished. If the promises of the covenant were supposed to be passed down through the descendants of Jacob, then why did Esau remain in their ancestral lands? Nations in the ancient Near East judged the strength of one another’s gods by the success of their military, the expansion of their borders, and the size of their temples. The strength of the God of Judah would be questioned if his people were exiled, their military was defeated, and their temple was destroyed. When the people finally returned to repossess the land, the nations would take notice and exalt Yahweh. Restoration is not just a nationalistic idea. It is an object lesson for the world on the fidelity of Judah’s God. This is the significance of Obadiah’s closing notes.
Obadiah’s words reassured the exiles, expressing that God was not ignorant of Esau’s sins, and he would not let the Edomites get away with their actions. Edom’s punishment was coming too, and it would be more certain than Judah’s. Obadiah’s prophecies against Edom would unfold soon after their utterance.
The last King of Babylon—Nabonidus—destroyed Edom’s capital city of Bozrah. By the fourth century BCE, nomadic Arab tribes had pushed the Edomites out of their ancestral territory. The Nabateans settled in the mountains that had been previously occupied by Edom, resulting in the rest of the Edomites migrating westward to Judah. They never regained independence. By the time of the prophet Malachi in 312 BCE, Edom was nothing but a “desert for jackals” (Mal. 1:3).
To any outside spectator living in the post-Babylonian destruction, Judah’s punishment and Edom’s punishment looked the same, but after 70 years of exile, the Jewish deportees returned. Slowly and in waves, they rebuilt their walls, their capital city, and their temple. However, Edom, like Israel’s other rival neighbors, did not resume their independent status. They remained conquered peoples while Israel rebuilt. It all played out just like Balaam the prophet had foreseen centuries before, when the Israelites were a nation without land: “Edom will be conquered. Seir, his enemy, will be conquered, but Israel will grow strong” (Num. 24:18).
Obadiah has a narrow focus: it is a complete book devoted to the destruction of one longtime rival of Israel, but Edom represents all the nations that have come against Yahweh, and the way he has held them accountable. In fact, Edom is spelled with the same consonants as Adam, the Hebrew word for humankind. So, in certain ways Edom represents humankind as they relate to one of the very first promises God gave to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you” (Gen. 12:3). Election is a mystery, but it is at the very heart of how God first began to interact with and intercede in the world of his creation.