Book of Obadiah in Easton's Bible Dictionary
consists of one chapter, "concerning Edom," its impending
doom
(1:1-16), and the restoration of Israel (1:17-21).
This is the
shortest book of the Old Testament.
There are on record the account of four captures of
Jerusalem,
(1) by Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam (1 Kings
14:25); (2) by
the Philistines and Arabians in the reign of Jehoram
(2 Chr.
21:16); (3) by Joash, the king of Israel, in the
reign of
Amaziah (2 Kings 14:13); and (4) by the Babylonians,
when
Jerusalem was taken and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar
(B.C. 586).
Obadiah (1:11-14) speaks of this capture as a thing
past. He
sees the calamity as having already come on
Jerusalem, and the
Edomites as joining their forces with those of the
Chaldeans in
bringing about the degradation and ruin of Israel.
We do not
indeed read that the Edomites actually took part
with the
Chaldeans, but the probabilities are that they did
so, and this
explains the words of Obadiah in denouncing against
Edom the
judgments of God. The date of his prophecies was
thus in or
about the year of the destruction of Jerusalem.
Edom is the type of Israel's and of God's last foe
(Isa.
63:1-4). These will finally all be vanquished, and
the kingdom
will be the Lord's (comp. Ps. 22:28).
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