Obadiah: a word against Edom

About the book

Obadiah is one chapter of twenty-one verses, the shortest book of the Old Testament. The name means ‘servant of the LORD’. Several men in the Old Testament bear it, but of this prophet nothing is known beyond the book's first words, "This is the vision of Obadiah" (Obadiah 1:1).

Edom was the people of Esau, Jacob's elder brother, who lived in the rocky hills south-east of the Dead Sea. Before the twins were born the LORD said, "Two nations are in your womb" (Genesis 25:23), and the brothers' quarrel became a long enmity between their peoples. Obadiah charges Edom with standing aloof on the day of its brother's disaster, looting with the invaders, and cutting off those who fled.

The date turns on which disaster this was. Many scholars take it to be Babylon's destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC, and date the book soon after; a psalm remembers how on that day the Edomites cried, "Destroy it … tear it down to its foundations!" (Psalm 137:7). Others place it earlier, in the ninth century, when Edom rebelled against Judah under King Jehoram (2 Kings 8:20) and Philistines and Arabs plundered the king's palace (2 Chronicles 21:17). The map under the Jesus tab places the book in the divided monarchy (930–586 BC), the era that ends with Jerusalem's fall.

How it unfolds

Verses 1–9 announce that proud Edom, high in its rocks, will be brought low; verses 10–14 name its violence against its brother; verses 15–21 proclaim the day of the LORD on all the nations and the restoration of Zion.

Key passages

The pride of your heart has deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks whose habitation is the heights, who say in your heart, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’ Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, even from there I will bring you down

Obadiah 1:3-4

Pride let Edom watch its brother's ruin as though it were none of its business: "you should not gloat in that day, your brother's day of misfortune" (Obadiah 1:12). The law had said of the Edomite, "he is your brother" (Deuteronomy 23:7). The English pastor Matthew Henry writes, "Those have a great deal to answer for, who are idle spectators of the troubles of their neighbours, when able to be active helpers" Matthew Henry.

For the Day of the LORD is near for all the nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your recompense will return upon your own head.

Obadiah 1:15

The day of the LORD, as Joel explains it, reaches not only Edom but every nation. And the book ends, "the kingdom will belong to the LORD" (Obadiah 1:21).

The book and Christ

The New Testament does not quote Obadiah, but its last words ring out in heaven's song in Revelation: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever" (Revelation 11:15). Matthew Henry says, "When Christ is come, and not till then, shall the kingdom be the Lord's in the full sense of the term" Matthew Henry.

Obadiah's word that God does not forget what is done to a brother is heard again in Jesus' teaching. Speaking of the day when all the nations are gathered before him, the King says, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me" (Matthew 25:40).

Reading it

Obadiah makes one short sitting; read Obadiah and then Jeremiah 49:7-22, which has many of the same words, and Psalm 137. Next comes Jonah.

Practice