Mining the Minors: Obadiah (1)

“Two nations are in your womb,” the Lord told Rebekah, and “the older shall serve the younger.” The story is so well known that I hardly need tell you the older brother’s name was Esau and the younger Jacob. Jacob became the father of the nation of Israel, Esau the father of Edom, and God set about fulfilling his word to their mother (with some minor, totally unnecessary assistance from mom and a notwithstanding a less successful effort to thwart it from dad).

Later, God would tell his prophet Malachi, “I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.” Paul quoted that much-misunderstood line in Romans 9 to the delight of determinists everywhere.

More on that later. Much later.

The Descendants of Esau

Where most of scripture concerns the children of Jacob (or Israel), the prophecy of Obadiah is all about Edom, Esau’s descendants. God’s purposes in election made the nation of Edom second banana to Israel over the course of centuries, but they did not do so badly for themselves at first. They became a nation well before Israel did. God blessed them and gave them territory of their own, and even warned Israel against fighting with them. That’s a funny way to express hatred: by granting blessing and protection. Nevertheless, that is what God did.

Even later, under the Law of Moses, individual Edomites always had the option to become proselytes of Judaism and live in Israel under a restricted citizenship, including after Edom refused Israel passage through its territory on their way to the Promised Land. However, when Edom’s hatred of their brothers persisted generation after generation, the nation finally incurred the ongoing judgment of God. As Ezekiel puts it, they “cherished perpetual enmity”. That never works out well.

That’s what this short prophecy is all about.

Overview of Obadiah

Timeframe Considerations: 840 BC

Dating Obadiah is no easy task. There are two major schools of thought about when the book was written. Both depend on internal evidence.

Chuck Swindoll likes the 840s BC, which would make Obadiah the earliest prophetic writer of all, contemporary with Elijah/Elisha. His reasoning? He thinks verses 10-14 depict the invasion of Jerusalem in 2 Chronicles 21:16-17, and speculates that Edom was an unnamed party to it.

There is no real value in inserting Edom into Jehoram’s losing battle with the Philistines and peninsula Arabs, and no warrant to do so. Chronicles does not even mention Edom in passing, let alone name it as a participant in Judah’s brief ninth century humiliation. To me, verses 10-14 depict Edom as gloating onlookers, not a conquering army; opportunists who stood by and even sided with the enemy as strangers plundered their kindred. That does not jibe with the Chronicles account.

Timeframe Considerations: The Babylonian Invasion

Moreover, we can point to multiple OT writers who condemn Edom for participating in a much more recent scenario that harmonizes precisely with Obadiah’s description. Ezekiel writes, “You [Edom] cherished perpetual enmity and gave over the people of Israel to the power of the sword at the time of their calamity, at the time of their final punishment” and again, “As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so I will deal with you; you shall be desolate.” The writer of Psalm 137 provides further insight into these events, naming the Babylonians as the invaders and Edom as their cheering section. He writes, “They said, ‘Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!’ ” Jeremiah also calls out Edom in Lamentations and promises, like Obadiah, that they will get theirs eventually.

But these events took place at the time of Judah’s “final punishment” at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar just prior to the Babylonian exile, not during a comparatively minor invasion from the south and west two and a half centuries earlier.

The “Jeremiah” Passage

Other arguments for and against particular dates are easily dismissed. One of the better ones for the later date involves a rhetorical couplet in Obadiah also found in Jeremiah 49: “If thieves came to you, if plunderers came by night would they not steal only enough for themselves? If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave gleanings?” It’s possible Jeremiah is quoting Obadiah from centuries earlier, but it’s notable that Obadiah has interrupted the couplet with the exclamation “how you have been destroyed!” If Jeremiah were quoting Obadiah, why would he omit that line? However, if Obadiah quoted Jeremiah, he might well add editorial commentary, which could be the case here. If this is correct, then Obadiah wrote much closer to the captivity, as The Jerusalem Bible dates Jeremiah 49 to 605 BC, when the Babylonians had commenced their forays into Judah, carrying off exiles like Daniel and Ezekiel as they saw fit. (Alternatively, perhaps both prophets quoted an independent source now lost to us, but this seems to me the least likely option of the three.)

Accordingly, the later date for Obadiah is the “near-consensus” scholarly position, making Obadiah (along with Joel) a prime candidate for the last pre-exilic prophet rather than the first.

A Short History of Edom

The last recorded contact between Jacob and his brother Esau was at their father’s funeral in Genesis 35. Genesis 36 is all about Esau and his descendants, who settled in the hill country of Seir because the family’s combined possessions and livestock were too great for the land of Canaan to support both brothers living side by side. At that time, Seir belonged to the Horites, who Esau’s descendants dispossessed and destroyed with God’s blessing much as Israel largely dispossessed the Canaanites. The Horites had chiefs; Edom had kings, and this long before Israel did.

As mentioned earlier, relations between Edom and Israel became acrimonious on the way back from Egypt. Moses politely requested passage through Edom’s territory. The king of Edom refused, and even sent out the army to make sure Israel did not trespass on their territory, so Israel turned back into the wilderness and traveled another way in obedience to God’s command. After that, the prophecies of Edom’s eventual dispossession began, first with Balaam. So we must read the statement “Esau I have hated” in that context, aware that Edom showed inexplicable and unreasonable enmity toward Israel while still enjoying God’s blessing and protection. In short, whatever eventually happened to Edom, God didn’t start it.

In the early days of the united kingdom, Edom was an enemy and God routed them before Saul. David eventually subdued Edom and built Israelite garrisons in their territory to manage it from afar, and the Edomites grudgingly served Israel. Years later, Edom allied with Jehoshaphat and Ahab against Moab, but during the reign of the aforementioned Jehoram, Edom finally revolted against their brothers in Judah and Israel and crowned their own king, and ever after fought with Judah. Amaziah won a great victory over Edom at Sela and renamed it.

So then, Edom bore an unwarranted and unwise grudge against Israel going back centuries. That brings us to the events described in Obadiah, which Yours Truly believes occurred at the time of the Babylonian invasion, before Nebuchadnezzar turned his eye toward Edom.

The Scope of Obadiah’s Prophecy

Obadiah’s prophecy against Edom, and those of other prophets like Ezekiel, Malachi and Isaiah, raise historical questions about the specifics of prophetic fulfilment that we can’t answer to our satisfaction at this point. Obadiah seems to be speaking of a judgment that was then future, but has now taken place, as secular history indicates. Edom is no longer a viable, identifiable nation today, and has not inhabited its God-given original territory since the sixth century BC. Seir is lost to Esau’s descendants. Edom serves as the definitive cautionary tale for all nations that hate Israel and try to destroy her, especially those that will gather for the final battle in the Valley of Jehoshaphat at the end of the great tribulation. In Obadiah’s words, “For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head.”

At the same time, there are hints that the final fate of the children of Esau awaits that very battle, and that their former territory will be dispersed to others yet again in Armageddon’s aftermath. John Walvoord writes:

“Many of the prophecies relating to Edom have already been fulfilled, such as the extended predictions of Jeremiah 9:26; 25:21; 49:7-22; Lamentations 4:22; Ezekiel 25:12-14; Joel 3:19; Amos 1:6, 9, 11; 2:1. Some of these may be a foreshadowing of ultimate subjugation of Edom in the millennial kingdom.”

Then and Now

Thomas Constable’s Expository Notes are similarly enigmatic:

“The Edomites’ fortunes ebbed and flowed for centuries following Obadiah’s prophecy. Herod the Great (Matt. 2:1-17), Herod Antipas (Luke 13:31-32; 23:7-12), and Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:1-11, 23) were all of Edomite descent. But in the second century B.C. the Jews virtually consumed Edom as a nation. It was then that the Edomites lost their national identity and autonomy, which they never regained. So the final destruction of the nation of Edom by Israel took place long before the eschaton.”

“Edom’s punishments that resulted in her demise as a nation before the Second Coming were part of God's judgment on her, but the prophet saw all God’s judgments on Edom and the nations, which will culminate in the eschaton (end times). All the prophets had difficulty seeing the proximity of the future events that they predicted to one another.”

If we question the reappearance of Edomites in the end times given their apparent absence at present, it’s not just Obadiah who mentions them. Isaiah too mentions Edom right at the very end of the tribulation, as does Joel. So perhaps there are genetically identifiable Edomites still lurking around the southern Transjordan awaiting judgment for their attitude and actions toward Israel at a future date. N.N. Taleb’s observations about the slow migration of genes are of interest in that respect, though to the best of my knowledge the genetic sciences are not currently prioritizing questions about possible modern-day descendants of Esau. Historians can’t help us much either. They can’t even agree about the circumstances that led to the destruction of the Edomite nation as a viable entity. The Jewish Virtual Library suggests that after Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Edom, the remaining descendants of Esau migrated into the area in the south of Judah that became known as Idumea and lived there for centuries intermarrying with Jews.

The Approach

So then, a number of violent and less-violent events occurred between Obadiah’s prophecy and the first century that appear to have largely fulfilled his predictions, diminishing Edom’s presence in today’s history books to little more than a footnote. Other details mentioned by the prophets remain to be comprehensively fulfilled.

That is how we will approach the book.