[ [3]] In Micah i. 15 the entire people are called Jacob. The same occurs also in Hos. x. 11, xii. 3 (2).
[ [4]] Hitzig says: With a disposition of mind different from that in iii. 2, the prophet says here, "You enjoy no privileges with me, you are to me like all others." A strange disposition of mind indeed for a prophet! An interpretation which results in such thoughts, which cannot be entertained for a moment, is self-condemned.
[ [5]] Whether, however, it was James or Luke who quoted these words according to the version of the LXX., this passage is one of the many hundreds which prove that the violent urging and pressing for an improvement in our (German) authorized version of the Scriptures, as it proceeded from von Meier and Stier, is exaggerated. The Saviour and His Apostles adopted, without hesitation, the version current at their time, when its deviations concerned not the thought but the words. If we proceed upon this principle, how will the mountain of complaints melt away which has been raised against Luther's translation of the Scriptures. But it is true that, even then, weighty objections remain. The revision of it is a want of the Church; but it is not so urgent that we may not, and must not, wait for the time when it may be satisfied without danger. If it were undertaken at present, the disadvantages would far outweigh the advantages. To everything there is a season; and it is the duty of the wise steward to find it out, and to know it.
[THE PROPHECY OF OBADIAH.]
We need not enter into details regarding the question as to the time when the prophet wrote. By a thorough argumentation, Caspari has proved, that he occupies his right position in the Canon, and hence belongs to the earliest age of written prophecy, i.e., to the time of Jeroboam II. and Uzziah. As bearing conclusively against those who would assign to him a far later date, viz., the time of the exile, there is not only the indirect testimony borne by the place which this prophecy occupies in the collection of the prophets which is chronologically arranged, but there are also the following facts;—that those who are to inflict the predicted calamity upon Judah are not at all more definitely characterized than in the first part of Hosea, in Joel, and Amos;—that, in like manner, the heathen power from which the overthrow of Edom is to proceed, is neither mentioned, nor more definitely pointed out in any other way;—that Jeremiah already made use of Obadiah's prophecy; and if such be denied, the older foundation would then be withdrawn from the prophecy of Jeremiah—which would be contrary to the analogy of Jeremiah's prophecies against foreign nations;—and, finally, that, in vers. 12-14, the prophet exhorts the Edomites neither to rejoice nor to co-operate in the destruction of Jerusalem, because, otherwise, they would certainly receive the well-merited reward of such wickedness committed against the Covenant-people, to whom they were so nearly related. Such an exhortation would have been out of place, after the wickedness had been committed.—The view of Hofmann (which was revived by Delitzsch in his treatise, "When did Obadiah prophesy?" [Guerike's Zeitschrift 51, Hft. 1])—according to which the capture of Jerusalem by the Philistines and Arabians under Jehoram (2 Chron. xxi. 16 ff.) was the occasion of the prophecy before us, and according to which Obadiah is thus made the oldest among all the prophets in the Canon, and separated by nearly a century from the three prophets who preceded him—overlooks the fact that only cogent reasons could induce us to assume so isolated a position, since it is certainly not a matter of accident that the written prophecy began its course under the reign of Jeroboam and Uzziah. The guilt and punishment of Edom are, in like manner, spoken of in the Preterite; and it is inadmissible to understand the Preterites as historical, in so far as they refer to the guilt, and as prophetical, in so far as they refer to the punishment. The words, "Day of their destruction," in ver. 12, are decisive against every other catastrophe upon Judah, but that of the Chaldean. Ver. 20, when rightly interpreted, supposes the carrying away of Israel and Judah, and hence allows us to think only of the Assyro-Chaldean catastrophe. In ver. 21, Mount Zion is forsaken, and "the saviours" return to it from the land of captivity.
In strict accordance with the position of the book in the Canon, is the fact, that Obadiah connects himself most closely with Joel, and, excepting him, among all the prophets, with Amos only; compare Caspari, S. 20 ff., 35; Hävernick, Einleitung II. S. 318. Of greater importance than the coincidences in particulars, is the fact that the prophecy of Obadiah, upon the whole, connects itself most closely and immediately with the fourth (third) chapter of Joel—that in the prophecy of Obadiah, we have indeed a variation on that chapter. The judgment upon Judah, which Joel announces in the first part, is here supposed to have already taken place; and this might be done so much the rather, because, even in Joel, the prophetic Plerophory, with which rationalistic interpreters are so much puzzled, has changed the Future into the Present and Past—as, even there, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the overflowing of the whole country by the heathen, are represented as already existing. It is only the judgment upon the heathen, and the restoration of Israel, which Obadiah represents in his prophetic picture.
Like Hosea (in the first three chapters), Joel, and Amos, so Obadiah also, received the mission to point out the catastrophe threatened by the world's power, even before the latter existed on the scene of history. It was to the Covenant-people a source of rich consolation that it was so clearly and distinctly foretold to them, even before it had an existence, and the points of view from which it must be regarded were opened up to them. He, however, distinctly points to one idea only, just because there were already predecessors to whose prophecies he could refer. He did not receive the mission to call to repentance, or to represent the judgment as a well-deserved punishment—although, indirectly, in him as well as in Joel, these thoughts also occur, as certainly as the supposed destruction of Judah and Israel could only be the punishment of their sin; he has to point out only the salvation subsequent to the overflowing by the heathen world, the conquering power of the kingdom of God which, in the end, will manifest itself, and deeply to impress upon the Covenant-people the words: θαρσεῖτε, ἐγὼ νενίκηκα τὸν κόσμον. The glaring contrast betwixt the idea—according to which the kingdom of God was to be all prevailing—and the reality, in which it is pressed into a corner, shall in future increase still more. Even from this corner, the people of God shall be driven. But death is the transition to life; the uttermost degree of sufferings, the forerunner of deliverance and salvation. Not a restoration only is in store for the people of God—they even obtain the dominion of the world; but to the heathen world, which is at enmity with God, their exaltation is a forerunner of destruction.
All which Obadiah had to say in reference to the heathen, God-hating world, and to the form which, in future, Israel's relation to it would assume, has been exemplified by him in the case of Edom. For the fact, that it is only the heathen power individualized which we have before us, is shown by the transition to the heathen in general in ver. 15, according to which, Edom comes into consideration only as a part of the whole: "For near is the day of the Lord upon all the heathen." So also is it in ver. 16: "For as ye[1] have drunk upon My holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually;[2] and they drink, and sup up, and they are as though they were not." When speaking of the guilt, he mentions Edom only; when speaking of punishment, he introduces all the heathen at once. According to ver. 17, Israel shall occupy the possessions of all the heathen. And even the last words of the whole prophecy, "And the kingdom shall be the Lord's," show that it bears a universal character,—that in the case of Edom, we have only a principle exemplified which applies to all the enemies of the kingdom of God. The leading thought is: The kingdom of God shall obtain universal dominion, which follows the deepest abasement of the people of God, and of which the fullest and most perfect realization must be sought in Christ.
The animating thought could be so much the better individualized in the case of Edom, as its natural relation to Israel was one of special nearness, and its hatred specially deep; and as, moreover, it at all times considered itself the rival of Israel, of whose advantages it was envious. That which Amos, the cotemporary of Obadiah, says of Edom in chap. i. 11—"He pursues his brother with the sword, and corrupts his compassions, and his anger tears perpetually, and he keeps his wrath for ever"—shows how exceedingly well he was fitted to be a representative of the enemies of the kingdom of God. It was so much the more obvious thus to represent Edom as a particular and individualizing exemplification of this principle, as the prophets of that period had not as yet received any more definite disclosures as to the threatening kingdoms of the future, while Edom, in his hatred against the people of God, stood before their eyes. The germ of this is to be found in Joel iv. (iii.) 19, where Edom already appears as a representative and type of the God-hating heathen world, which is to be judged by the Lord, after the judgment upon Judah.