Reading: Obadiah, Psalm 128

Recently I was talking to a friend who is beginning a series of sermons through the book of the prophet Malachi. In talking about the difficulties of preaching the minor prophets, it came up that one of the hardest is the book of Obadiah. Now, being that this is the shortest book in the Hebrew Bible, one might think the opposite. But sometimes brevity does not make for complete clarity. Especially when we are looking back from so far away.

We know almost nothing about Obadiah. There is another person of that name in the Bible, actually there are several but only one that is really significant, the steward of King Ahab during the time of Elijah in the book of Kings. But this Obadiah does not appear to be the same person, both because he does not announce himself as such, and because the subject matter he discusses does not connect with the time of Ahab and his wicked kingdom.

That subject matter? Obadiah deals almost entirely with the neighboring nation of Edom. If you remember all the way back to the book of Genesis, Edom was the name of the clan descended from Esau, Jacob’s brother. God has promised to make great nations out of the descendants of Abraham, and Edom is one of those nations. For a while, the Edomites appear to be friendly to the people of Israel, though eventually they become antagonistic. Obadiah is writing about Edom in a time when they have totally abandoned their brotherly bond with the descendants of Jacob.

When did this happen? It’s not entirely clear when Obadiah saw his vision from God, but it relates events in which the Jerusalem has been sacked. This could have been the final destruction of the city by Babylon in 586, which resulted in the exile, but it also could have been one of the previous excessive tribute demands or earlier invasions in which Babylon carried off the wealth and entered his gates. We don’t know that for sure. What we do know is that Obadiah’s accusation against Edom is that when that was happening, they opportunistically joined in the abuse of the people of Judah. Obadiah describes the people of Edom as basically having a party while Jerusalem is destroyed, and then abusing on the road the exiles who are leaving the land.

In the pattern we have come to expect from the minor prophets, Obadiah then describes a coming Day of the Lord, in which Edom will be ruined by the justice of God. Their behavior towards their brother nation will not go unpunished. This is the prophecy that opened the book as well, telling Edom that it will be the lowest of the nations and lie totally desolate following the judgment of God.

Now, up to this point Obadiah has been about Edom, but now he engages in some interesting wordplay to pivot his message from one nation to all nations. This breaks down in English, so we have to talk about Hebrew words for a minute. The word Edom looks like this: אֱדוֹם, compare that to this: אָדָם. They look pretty similar, and in ancient Hebrew letters they would look even more similar. That second word is adam, the Hebrew for humanity. In verse 15 Obadiah takes his message against one nation, Edom, and applies it to all nations. Edom is standing in for the world in their mockery of the misfortune of God’s people. Obadiah predicts a restoration of the descendants of Jacob and the return of the exiles of both the northern and southern kingdoms, who will rule the surrounding nations from Jerusalem.

This is a really hard book to get much out of if you are just reading early in the morning before your coffee kicks in. It feels like some guy who is mad at Edom saying some really mean things to them. But when we look more closely at it, we can see that the prophet had a message that was intended to go beyond the pain caused to his people by the Edomites. He was looking beyond them, to all the nations of the world. The minor prophets, on their surface, all deal with the present realities of a nation 2500 years ago or more. But they don’t stop there. They understood that they were part of a bigger story, and they believed that it was better than they knew.