The Book of Obadiah: Expository Commentary from Sermons by Dr Peter Masters

Bible Commentary on Obadiah

by Dr Peter Masters, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London (adapted from sermons)

Here is the shortest of the Old Testament books: one chapter, twenty-one verses, a most remarkable book. His name means ‘servant of the Lord’, and he prophesied in the south to Judah and he was called to deliver a solemn warning against Edom, one of Judah’s persistent enemies, a message that was given for the comfort of God’s people. The Lord knew their afflictions, and he was not indifferent to what they suffered, and this enemy would be brought to an end.

It is an easy little book to divide up. The first 16 verses are about the destruction of Edom, and this does not just have historical significance, because Edom, as we see through the book, remarkably pictures the whole world order. The Scripture explicitly refers to Esau as a type of the world, and of those not favoured by God (Malachi 1:2-3) and that verse in Malachi is quoted by Paul in Romans 9:13 is his teaching about election. The same is true of Edom, the descendants of Esau; God is against them and will throw them down and not build them up (Malachi 1:4). So yes, Edom was a literal nation, which literally launched itself time after time against the Jewish people to hurt and oppress them.

There is some debate about this, but Obadiah probably wrote either 848-840 BC or about 580 BC. The two dates are associated with two distinct invasions of Judah: the first by the Philistines and Arabians (2 Chronicles 21:8-10, 16-17), and the second the Babylonian invasion under Nebuchadnezzar. As far as all the older writers are concerned the favourite is the early date, and this would make Obadiah the first of the minor prophets to write under the inspiration of Almighty God. Edom was repeatedly crushed and defeated, but eventually it managed to throw off the Jewish yoke, only to come under the bondage of the Assyrians and to become a vassal state to them. Following that it was brought under the sway of Babylon, and when the Babylonians came and swept down through Judah and attacked the people of God, the Edomites helped them and behaved in the most cunning and despicable way and cut down those refugees that fled from Judah and chained some of them and took them back to Babylon for which they received a prize and a reward of some extra land. The people of Judah, taken into exile in Babylon, mourned deeply over their predicament, and among other things Psalm 137:7 records Edom’s part in their sorrows: ‘Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof’ (Psalm 137:7), and Jeremiah predicts the punishment of Edom in similar language to Obadiah: ‘Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked. ²² The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins’ (Lamentations 4:21-22). Ezekiel also makes the same predictions in Ezekiel 25:12–14, and again in Ezekiel 35:1–15 – ‘Seir’ is the ancient name for the region occupied by Edom (Genesis 32:3). In the second of these passages in Ezekiel, the Lord charges Edom with ‘shed[ding] the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity’ and of rejoicing at Judah’s downfall, as here in Obadiah.

Edom was delighted with the fall of Judah, because then they could gloat and they could count this as their revenge. There was so much hatred for the people of God. The nation of Edom was descended from Esau, and from the time of that conflict between Jacob and Esau, when Esau was so filled with hatred towards Jacob, that same feeling pretty much characterised the attitude of the nation ever afterwards. There is then this prophecy long before the event, that Edom would eventually be destroyed, describing also the way in which she would fall, the way in which she would be destroyed, and so it was to the very letter, to the very last detail. Like many prophecies of Scripture, there was no indication at the time when it was given that what Obadiah said was likely to come to pass. Edom appeared to be in the ascendancy and Judah seemed to be trodden down, and yet the prophet said that the first would disappear under the judgment of God (verse 16), and the second would continue till the end of time (verse 17).

It is highly suggestive that verses 10-14 refer to the Babylonian invasion, when we note that Jeremiah quotes Obadiah 1:1-4 in almost the same words in Jeremiah 49, because certainly Jeremiah takes these words of Obadiah and applies them to his own times, and describes the Babylonians conquest of Judah and Jerusalem.

In their subsequent history the Edomites did not fare any better. Hailey says, ‘The Edomites were eventually overcome by the Nabataeans, a people who pushed in from the desert and drove the Edomites from their land. Pushed out of their own land at the south end of the dead Sea, the Edomites were forced to occupied territory just south of the land of Judah. Towards the close of the second century BC they were conquered by John Hyrcanus of the Maccabees, who force many of them to be circumcised and accept the law. Thus they became nominal Jewish proselytes. By 100 A.D. they had become lost to history.’

It is interesting that Balaam’s prophecy in Number 24:15-24 treats Edom as a type of the world. Referring to a time after Edom has already disappeared as a nation, Balaam says, ‘I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. ¹⁸ And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies; and Israel shall do valiantly. ¹⁹ Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city’ (Numbers 24:17-19). This Messianic prophecy speaks of the gospel age, and gives, not a territorial promise, but a spiritual promise. It is about gospel conquest in terms of Israel’s defeat of its historic enemies. After the time that under Christ, Edom and Seir would become a possession. The language is close to that of Obadiah 1:17.

These things are never in the Scripture just for historical interest. And it is the case that Edom pictures or mirrors the attitude of the whole world to God, and to the people of God. For her part, Israel of course typifies the church. In this book you have not only a prophecy of the literal fall of Edom – whereas the Jews would triumph and continue through history – but you have a picture of the whole world order. We see how the world and its nations throughout time are set against God and his rule and his way and so often are filled with hostility against the truth, against the Saviour, against the church. We see here what will unfold and what will happen. So though it is a very short book, it is a book full of telling information and help and comfort, particularly for us as God's people.

So here is this vassal state, Edom, and it is eventually going to fall. It's going to be judged and the prophecy is going to be fulfilled, and it's a book of comfort for us. This hostility of the world against the message of God and his people, it is only for time. It is only for the present. It isn't for eternity. That is one of the chief things that the book will say.

But there will be another message in this and it may be this is the most important message. And it's really encompassed entirely in one verse and other verses support it. It is that for those who run from Edom and this world order, and who flee from it, there will be mercy and there will be refuge and there will be help. So it is a book with, buried in the centre of it, a tremendous jewel of grace and mercy and kindness from Almighty God, even to those who are his enemies.