Obadiah

Obadiah short prophetic book of the Bible. The prophet is otherwise unknown. The oracle which comprises this book dates from after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC The prophecy calls down doom on Edom, who had gloated over the misfortune of Israel, and announces that the exiles of Israel and Judah will be re-gathered and will dominate Palestine, including Edom. Verses 1-9 are closely paralleled in the Book of Jeremiah, and verse 17 is apparently quoted in the Book of Joel.

Bibliography: See H. W. Wolff, Obadiah and Jonah (1986); J. Limburg, Hosea-Micah (1988).

Obadiah, Book of. Minor Prophet of the Hebrew scriptures and Christian Old Testament, the shortest book therein. The rabbis identified Obadiah with King Ahab's servant (1 Kings 18. 3–4), but this is unlikely.

Obadiah, book of One of the Minor Prophecies in the OT, though nothing is known of the prophet himself. It is the shortest book in the OT; perhaps placed fourth in its group in order to follow immediately the reference to edom in Amos (9: 12). It is a sustained execration of the Edomites for joining the enemies of Judah in sacking Jerusalem. The situation seems to be the siege of Jerusalem by the babylonians in 586 and the bitterness of the prophecy is aggravated by the kinship of the Edomites to the people of Israel (Obad. 12); the Edomites were descended from Esau (Gen. 36: 9), the brother of Jacob (Israel), and they occupied the land later called Idumaea. The freshness of the denunciation argues for a date of composition not far off 586 BCE, and certainly before Edom was occupied by the Nabataeans in the 4th cent.

Obad. does not have any hint of the duty of a gentile mission, as Jonah does; but the threat of vengeance which is its theme is ascribed to the hand of God (Obad. 21), who is absolute Justice (Obad. 8), rather than being wrought by the injured people, and ‘Edom’ could indeed stand for all the similar evils perpetrated by human beings.