Obadiah, book of (Hastings' Dictionary)

i. Name, and Place in the Canon. ii. Contents. iii. Unity and Date. iv. Condition of Text, Literary Characteristics, etc. Literature. This, the shortest of all the prophetical writings, consisting of only twenty-one verses, has an im- portance out of all proportion to its length, be- cause of the literary and exegetical questions it raises, and the diversity of opinion which still prevails as to the wnity and the date of the book, and the historical allusions it contains. i.

NAME, AND PLACE IN THE CANON.—The name Obadiah is not uncommon in the OT (see pre- ceding article), and has been read on an ancient seal, inscribed ‘Obadyahu ‘ebhed hammelekh (see figure in Benzinger, Heb. Arch. p. 258). It occurs, like similar names, in the two forms wy and 7729, of which the latter is used in the case of the prophetical book which forms our subject. The Neaeearetie pointing 7:72, which is supported by LXX B Ὀβδειού, implies, as is pointed out by G. A.

Smith (Twelve Prophets, ii. 164 n.), the meaning ‘worshipper of J”’ (1 οἵ. Obed-edom; see the cautious note of Driver, Text of Sam. p. 206), but the word might be vocalized 73y=ny-13y ‘ser- vant of J”’ (ef. AN’ ABS(e)od; NI2y of Neh 1127|| 1 Ch 916. and the name Addiel in 1Ch δ᾽.

Of the particular Obadiah whose name the prophecy bears we know nothing, although Delitzsch conjectures that he may have been the prince of that name who, according to 2 Ch 17’, was sent by Jehosha- phat to teach in the cities of Judah. It must, indeed, remain uncertain whether the name is that of the author of the early prophecy contained in vv.!

-10 (see below), or of the writer who supple- mented this and gave the book its present form, or whether (which Kénig suggests as a possibility) both these authors bore the name Obadiah.* In the Hebrew Bible the Bk. of Ob stands fourth amongst the Twelve Minor Prophets, be tween Amos and Jonah. It has been suggested by Kénig (Zindeit.

302) that this position may have been given to it by the collectors of the Canon in view of Am 9" (‘that they may possess the remnant of Edom’), which finds its echo and its supplement in Ob ™ (‘they . . shall possess the mount of Esau’), and of Ob? (‘a messenger is sent among the nations’), which might be sup- posed to find an illustration in the story of Jonah (cf. art. JONAH, in vol. ii, p. 748°).

In the LXX Obadiah alone comes between Jl and Jon, the order being Hos, Am, Mic, Jl, Ob, Jon, instead of | the MT order Hos, JI, Am, Ob, Jon, Mic. 2. A Levite, | * We assume that ΠΡ» Is a proper name and not merely an appellative, as is probably the case with ΣΝ ‘my messenger, | which usage has converted into the familiar name Malachi. OBADIAH, BOOK OF Obadiah is one of the OT books that are not quoted in the New Testament. ii. CoNTENTS.—The prophecy is announced as ‘concerning Edom.

’ Tareas has sent a messenger (vy) among the nations to stir up a general rising against her (v.?) The words oy7xd may yy Dx AD must have been penned by the later writer (see below under ‘ Unity’) to introduce the quotation of the earlier oracle, beginning ‘We have heard,’ ete. ; for it is plain that the latter is a form of expression which could hardly be put directly into the mouth of Jahweh. Edom is to be brought low in spite of her trust in her rocky fastnesses (vv.?4).

The ruin is to be complete, the spoiling beyond that of ordinary thieves (vv.5), This destruction of Edom is to be wrought by the treachery of her former friends and allies (v.7). The wonted wisdom of Edom shall fail her in this extremity (vv.*). The reason for this chastisement is the unbrotherl conduct of which Edom was guilty towards Jud in the day of its calamity when Jerusalem was sacked by foreign, and lots cast over it (vv.

11), Edom is emphatically charged to desist from such conduct (vv.!2-44), The imperatives in vv.1214 a) icture which the writer calls up to himself of the conduct of idom. He is really describing the past, but he speaks of what the Edomites had actually done as of what they ought not to do. to be due to the vivid The day of the Lord (on this conception see Driver, Joel and Amos [Index]; A. B. avidson on Zeph 1’ and in art. EscHATOLOGY oF OT in vol. i. of this Dictionary, p. 735 ff.)

is near upon all the nations, in whose destruction Edom shall share, being exterminated by the united ‘house of Jacob’ (including both Judah and Ephraim (vv. 35-28), . The idea of a reunion of Judah and Ephraim in the last days appears elsewhere, 6.0. in Jer 315-27, Zec 106.—The ‘ye’ of v.16 cannot be the Edomites, who are addressed throughout in the wenuine es by ‘thou.’ Moreover, Edom must be included in ‘all the nations.’ The ‘ye’ can only be the Jerusalemites.

As Judah had once drunk the cup of Jahweh’s fury (for the expression cf. Ezk 2382, La 421, ‘Jer’ 5117, Hab 216, Pg 759 (Eng. 5]; cf. also Jer 131214 [Ὁ Jehoiachin’s time] for a closely allied conception), so must the heathen now drink it. The house of Jacob shall reinherit their ancient ssessions, Judah and Benjamin overflowing into phraim and Gilead, which are compensated by receiving the borderland of Pheenicia as far as Zarephath, while the Negeb dispossesses Esau of Mt.

Seir, and the captives from Sepharad occupy the cities of the Negeb. ‘Saviours’ (cf. Jg 916 3° 1°) shall defend Zion and ‘judge’ the mount of Esau, and the rule of Jahweh shall be established (νυ ἘΈ The summary given of this last section is what upon the whole appears to us to be the most probable meaning, but much uncertainty attaches to it. Wellhausen, followed by Nowack, understands vv.19. 20 quite differently. He pronounces them to be an expansion of v.

17, and declares that 2330 and 7597 cannot possibly be subjects of 7) (as AV and RV take them). They must be in apposition with WY Wny and -nx WAYS respectively (both of which Wellh. pronounces inter- polated, because they have nx prefixed, while 23:7 and προψτι want it). He remarks, further, that ‘Benjamin,’ if genuine, would reflect the late conception that Jerus. was situated in this tribe. But possibly it is a textual error, we expect rather a verb.

jor, too, he suspects, for the ‘fields of Samaria’ would surely be included in the ‘fields of Ephraim.’ See, further, below under ‘ Date.’ iii, UNtty AND DATE.—Three leading forms of opinion have prevailed regarding these: (1) that the Bk. of Ob is a unity and pre-exilic; (2) that it consists of two portions both post-exilic; (3) that it is made up of an early pre-exilic and a late post-exilic passage.

We shall presently ex- amine each of these positions, but in the first place it will be well to consider a question whose answer will affect our final conclusion, namely— OBADIAH, BOOK OF What is the relation between Οὗ 1:9 and Jer 497-2 The resemblance between these two passages is so close as to demand explanation. The facts are as follows :— Obi=Jer 4914, except that in Jer the sing. ‘AYDY is read instead of the plur. 13yDy, the pass. ptep. Qal my replaces the perf.

Pu'al nde for ‘is sent,’ and the expressions used in summoning the nations have been modified and slightly expanded (Ob having 72973) mby psp) wip, Jer sszan7 rmended wap) ΠΡ wa).

Ob 2=Jer 4915, except that in Jer an introductory ‘p is pre- fixed, that 7px after ‘13 is wanting, and that for ἽΝ ‘greatly’ of Ob we have in Jer 07¥3 ‘among men’ paral- Jel to 033 of the preceding clause, Ob %=Jer 49163, except that Ob wants the anyben ‘thy terribleness’ of Jer, that for ΝΠ of Ob we have in Jer πον κϑπ, that yp is anarthrous in Ob, but has the article in Jer, that Jer inserts *yph (‘holding’) before op (‘height’), and replaces inay (‘his dwelling’) by y33 ‘hill.

’ Ob 3>* that saith in his heart’ is wanting in Jer. Ob 4=Jer 4916b, except that Jer substitutes 3 for Ox, and omits ‘and though thou set [thy nest] among the stars.’ Ob 5 closely resembles Jer 499, but the order is reversed, Jer commencing with ‘if grape-gatherers came,’ etc., and the interrogative 7 is omitted before x5, making of the words an assertion instead of a question. The words ‘if spoilers’ and the exclamation ‘ How art thou destroyed !

’ are want ing in Jer, and for 3333) ‘ steal’ we have imnyn ‘destroy.’ Ob 8 resembles in thought, but only slightly in expression, Jer 4910. Note how w5n ‘search out’ of Ob is replaced by v7 in Jer. Ob 8 slightly resembles Jer 497, Ob % resembles Jer 4922b, It is evident that either Jeremiah borrowed from Obadiah or Obadiah from Jeremiah, or that both borrowed from a common source.

The first and the third of these have been the favourite positions maintained, although Hitzig and Vatke have main- tained that Jeremiah formed the model for Obadiah. But an examination of the differences between the texts of Obadiah and Jeremiah in the passages common to both has satisfied the great majority of scholars that the more original form of the pro- phecy is in Obadiah. [Only in vwv.

® 5-16 the omis- sion of ὑοῦ ox, the reading ὈπΝΞ for kp, and the retaining of 7p¥257, can the superiority be awarded to Jeremiah]. The logical connexion, too, is better in Obadiah. On the other hand, if Jeremiah is held to have borrowed from Obadiah, the following difti- culties have to be faced. Not only has Jeremiah occasionally the better text, but Jer 497-™, if it be from the pen of Jeremiah, dates from the fourth year (B.C.

604) of Jehoiakim’s reign, whereas Ob 14, as we shall presently find reason to con- clude, presupposes the capture of Jerusalem b the Chaldeans and the destruction of the Jewis State. Hence the Bk. of Obadiah could not have lain before Jeremiah in its present form—a con- clusion which is strengthened when we note that it is only from the first nine verses of Obadiah that Jeremiah would thus have borrowed, although much of what follows these would have suited his purpose admirably. Wellh.

and Nowack make Obadiah the direct model for Jer 497-”, but do not admit the genuineness of this sage, the former holding (with Stade, Smend, Schw y) that the whole of Jer 46-51 is non-genuine and late, the latter (with Giesebrecht, etc.) that many passages in these chapters, including 497-22, must be denied to Jeremiah. Nowack would account for the superiority of Jer 49°" to Ob ™? by supposing that in Ob? we have probably a textual corrup- tion and in y.

° an interpolation both introduced subsequent to the use of Obadiah by ‘Jeremiah.’ The safest conclusion appears to be that Jeremiah and Obadiah borrowed from a common source, and that Obadiah incorporated this with less alteration than Jeremiah. OBADIAH, BOOK OF »- To return now to the three views noted above as to the date of the book in its present form.

What we have said in comparing Jeremiah and Obadiah would suffice to show the improbability, not to say the impossibility, of (1) the view that the whole of Obadiah is pre-exilic and that the book is a unity (Caspari, v. Hofmann, Delitzsch, Nigelsbach, Keil, v. Orelli, Kirkpatrick, Peters). The objec- tions to the unity and an early date for the whole book are mainly three: (a) the nations are in vv.” God’s instruments of vengeance ainst Edom, whereas in vy.

they are all alike (Edom included) the object of Divine chastisement ; (ὁ) vv."-™ cannot have a satisfactory sense assigned to them except on the view that they refer to the capture of Jerus. and the deportation of the Jews by Nebuchadrezzar (cf. v. ‘the captivity of Jerusalem’); (6) there isa difference in style between the two halves of the book, the first being terse, animated, and full of striking figures, while the second is diffuse and marked by poverty of ideas and trite figures.

The occasion to which those who make the book a unity oe ascribe it is the capture of Jerusalem by the Philistines and Arabians in the time of Jehoram (c. 850 B.c.) But while this occurrence, regarding which, unfortunately, we have no information apart from 2 Ch 21!, might account for vv.!"™, it is quite inadequate to explain vv.1". (2) Wellhausen holds that vv.!° allude to the attitude displayed a Edom at the taking of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, but he sees no reason for making vv.

‘ [he considers vv.® interpolations} earlier. The attack upon Edom by treacherous friends and allies he cannot refer to any action on the part of Assyria, Babylon, or Persia, or of Moab or Ammon, not to speak of Judah or Israel, but must have in view, he thinks, the small nomadic neighbouring peoples.* The Edomites were, as a matter of fact, expelled from their original settle- ments by Arab tribes. This took place subsequent to the capture of Jerusalem, so that the main Sh for separating vv.!

° from vv.!7 seems to ellh. to fall away.t The Arabs had begun to press northwards in the beginning of the 6th cent. (perh. Zeph 914. of. v.7; Ezk 951: δ. 10). and at length we find them in B.c. 312 settled in Petra (Diodor. xix. 94); οἵ. the Arabic name Gebal for Seir in Ps 838, dating perhaps from about the same time. During the intermediate period we hear of Geshem or Gashmu the Arabian in Neh 2! 6}: * 8, and Wellh. thinks that Mal 11-δ (first half of 5th cent.)

may refer to the same ἘΣΕΒῸ of the expulsion of the Edomites by the Arabians as is represented in Ob**_ Of course he does not contend that all the Edomites were driven into the Negeb (which, he thinks, Ob" designates as the then dwelling- place of Esau). Many may have remained in their original homes, where under Arab rule they would be the special representatives of Nabatean culture, and this would account for the numerous Hebrew a er names that occur among the Nabateans. ellh.

does not attempt to fix the date of vv., but simply remarks that v.”" might refer to the a Ne of Idumea by John Hyrcanus, ellh. is closely followed in the above conclusions by Nowack, who fixes as the terminus a quo for vv.!"4the date of the capture of Jerusalem (B.C. 586), but thinks it should probably be brought down to a date shortly after that of Malachi. Vv.)

are much later, belonging to a time when eschatological hopes filled men’s minds, but we are not in a * It may perhaps be not without Interest, in view of the use of the term ‘thieves’ in v.5, to compare the application to the same tribes of the word daikanu (in the Tel el-Amarna tablets) which Winckler interprets ‘ robbers’ or ‘ murderers.’ + G. A. Smith agrees with Wellh. that v.

7 (which is not found in the lel in Jer) probably refers to the expulsion = ihe jomites by the Arabs, but assigns vv.) to an earlier OBADIAH, BOOK OF 579 penttion to fix the date more precisely. Both Vellh. and Nowack insist strongly that vv.’ describe what has actually bes og not what is going to happen, to Edom. It is different with vv.} 1, where, however, the punishment of Edom is to be simply an episode in the larger scheme of judgment upon all nations.

* Hitzig, who makes the whole book post-exilic, seeks to fix the date of Obadiah from the words in vie ma $50 nba, which he renders ‘the captivity of this fortress,’ alluding to the fortress of Egypt to which many Jews were carried captive by Ptolemy Lagi (cf. Jos. Ant. xu. i. 1, c. Ap. li. 4). In B.C. 312 Antigonus ordered an expedition against Petra, to which Hitzig would refer the words of Ob! ‘We have heard a report,’ etc.

The chief objection to this is that before 312 (see above) Petra had ceased to belong to Edom and had passed under the rule of the Arabians. (3) As we have seen above, the view strongly commends itself that vv.!-° (°F 10) are pre-exilic and borrowed pretty faithfully from an older source, whereas νυν. ἢ presuppose the capture of Jeru- salem and the Exile. This was the view of Ewald, and is adopted substantially by Kuenen, Cornill, Wildeboer, Driver, etc. According to Ewald (so also G. A.

Smith), the later prophet lived in the Captivity (v.29, which Ewald renders ‘of this coast’). The occasion of the earlier ad Ewald (improbably) ae to have been when Elath was restored by Rezin to the Edomites (2 K 168 Keré and RVm), and its author to have been a contemporary of Isaiah. Ko6nig, who accepts the view that Obadiah consists of a pre-exilic and an exilic or post-exilic portion, analyzes thus: (a) vv.1-10 (but v.7, whose concluding words are pleo- nastic alongside of v.

8, is probably an expansion; perhaps also v.9 on account of the late Ὁ] 184. 18. 195 300; (Ὁ) vy.11-15. 16b. 17. 190. 200. 21, robable that It appears, upon the whole, most elong to the not only the Exile but the Return ast. Note that there is no prediction of the re- uilding and re-populating of the capital, Jeru- salem. The expressions in the closing verses are best satisfied by a date such as Nowack postulates for vv.?"4 (c, 432 B.C.), or, perhaps preferably, later still.

It is unfortunate that the text and the meaning of these verses are so doubtful. A good deal has been built on the mention in y.7 ™) of Sepharad or (see Driver, ΚΟ 7 δ p. 320) Stphdaréd, for which the LXX has, AB ᾿Εφραθά, Q* Σαφαράδ, Q® Σφραθά. Targ. Onk. gives xyp29x, t.e. Hispania, Spain; hence the origin of the name ΩΣ for Spanish as distinguished from German (As/- kenazim) Jews.

If the MT is correct, the reference will be either to cpanis of the Persian inscriptions, which lay in Bithynia or Galatia—a district con- uered by Cyrus and organized into a satrapy by ΣΞΩΣ ystaspis—or Shaparda in S.W. Media, mentioned in inscriptions of Sargon (B.C. 721-705). The latter reference is adopted by Schrader (Keilin- schrift u. Geschichtsforschung, 116 ff., KAT?, 446 f. (COT ii. 145f.]), and is ese ‘exceedingly probable’ by Frd. Delitzsch (Paradies, 249). Sayce (HCM 482 ff.)

and Cheyne (Founders of OT Criticism, 311 1.) contend for Cparda (G. A. Smith, who believes the later part of Obadiah to have been written during the Exile, would hold, if Cparda is meant, that the reference to it is a late insertion). While Sayce is content to postulate a ‘compara- tively late date’ for the prophecy, Cheyne would definitely assign it to the period (c. 350 B.C.) when Artaxerxes Ochus deported many Jews who had taken part in the great revolt against the Persian supremacy.

01 3°(‘the children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have e sold unto the Grecians [Jévanim), that ye might remove them far from their border’) may refer to this. It is noteworthy that in the inscriptions Cparda is always mentioned in immediate connexion with Jaund, For this conception, of. Zeph 12% 35, Jer 255%, Ezk 36-38 Is 4529 680 0016. 186, Ig’ 341-9, Zoo 12% 4 142 2.13} 580 OBADIAH, BOOK OF OBED-EDOM * Greeks.’ i.e. ‘Tonians’ See, further, art. SEPHARAD.

Cornill considers that the late prophecies ‘Is’ 34. 35, in which, as in Obadiah, eacatnlocioal hopes are connected with the downfall of Edom, were certainly known to the author of Obadiah. The following parallels between Obadiah and Joel may be noted: Ob” and 7] 4 [Eng. 3] 1" have cond in common ; Ob" and J1 4 (Eng. 3] 35 both contain the expression 53!3 rm ‘they cast lots,’ which is found elsewhere only in Nah 3; Ob*® and Jl 4 (Eng. 3] 16; Ob? and J] 35 (Eng. 933] 4 [Eng. 3]}”.

In all these instances the probability appears to be that it is Joel who quotes from Obadiah and not vice versa (see ἃ. Buchanan Gray in Expositor, Sept. 1893, p. 208 ff., and οἵ. Cheyne, Founders of OF Gritciom, 312, and Driver, Joel and Amos, 19 ff). iv. CONDITION OF TEXT, LITERARY CHARACTER-