OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
O B A D I A H.
THIS is the shortest of all the books of the Old
Testament, the least of those tribes, and yet is not to be passed by,
or thought meanly of, for this penny has Cæsar's image and
superscription upon it; it is stamped with a divine authority. There
may appear much of God in a short sermon, in a little book; and much
good may be done by it, multum in parvo--much in a little. Mr.
Norris says, "If angels were to write books, we should have few
folios." That may be very precious which is not voluminous. This book
is entitled, The Vision of Obadiah. Who this Obadiah was does
not appear from any other scripture. Some of the ancients imagined him
to be the same with that Obadiah that was steward to Ahab's household
(1 Kings 18:3);
and, if so, he that hid and fed the prophets had indeed a prophet's
reward, when he was himself made a prophet. But that is a conjecture
which has no ground. This Obadiah, it is probable, was of a later date,
some think contemporary with Hosea, Joel, and Amos; others think he
lived about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, when the children
of Edom so barbarously triumphed in that destruction. However, what he
wrote was what he saw; it is his vision. Probably there was much
more which he was divinely inspired to speak, but this is all he was
inspired to write; and all he writes is concerning Edom. It is a
foolish fancy of some of the Jews that because he prophesies only
concerning Edom he was himself an Edomite by birth, but a proselyte to
the Jewish religion. Other prophets prophesied against Edom, and some
of them seem to have borrowed from him in their predictions against
Edom, as
Jeremiah 49:7,Eze+25:12,
&c. Out of the mouth of these two or three witnesses every word will be
established.
Matthew Henry "Verse by Verse Commentary for 'Obadiah' Matthew Henry Bible Commentary".
.