[482] Calvin, while refusing in his introduction to Obadiah to fix a date (except in so far as he thinks it impossible for the book to be earlier than Isaiah), implies throughout his commentary on the book that it was addressed to Edom while the Jews were in exile. See his remarks on vv. 18–20.
[483] There is a mistranslation in ver. 18: שׂריד is rendered by πυρόφορος.
[484] This is no doubt from the later writer, who before he gives the new word of Jehovah with regard to Edom, quotes the earlier prophecy, marked above by quotation marks. In no other way can we explain the immediate following of the words “Thus hath the Lord spoken” with “We have heard a report,” etc.
[485] ‘Sela,’ the name of the Edomite capital, Petra.
[486] The parenthesis is not in Jer. xlix. 9; Nowack omits it. If spoilers occurs in Heb. before by night: delete.
[487] Antithetic to thieves and spoilers by night, as the sending of the people to their border is antithetic to the thieves taking only what they wanted.
[488] לחמך, thy bread, which here follows, is not found in the LXX., and is probably an error due to a mechanical repetition of the letters of the previous word.
[489] Again perhaps a quotation from an earlier prophecy: Nowack counts it from another hand. Mark the sudden change to the future.
[490] Heb. so that.
[491] With LXX. transfer this expression from the end of the ninth to the beginning of the tenth verse.