Obadiah.
Obadiah.
§ 159. Obadiah (
) means “servant of God” or “God’s handiwork,” from the root 
and 
, which is contracted from 
[“Jehovah”]. It is not clearly evident as to his tribe and when he prophesied. Some make the probable claim that he lived around the beginning of the Babylonian captivity and addressed the people of Judah who had not yet been taken to Babylon. He is not the Obadiah mentioned in 1 Kings 18:3 because, with regard to time, he came later and was almost a contemporary of Jeremiah.
** Before he had begun to prophesy, he had reached the rank of semicenturion or “captain of fifty” under King Ahaz of Israel. After two semicenturions had been consumed by fire from heaven, King Ahaz had sent him to arrest the prophet Elijah, but he deserted the king, took up with the prophet, and became his disciple. Some of the rabbinic scholars claim that he was a proselyte from Edom because the little book of his prophecy was written especially against the Edomites, that is, the Chaldeans and heathen who afflicted Israel. **
It contains a single chapter that has two parts. The first is of the Law, in which he predicts the final destruction of the Edomites, who were rejoicing over the disaster that had befallen the people of Judah, and convicts them for their sins as the cause for their destruction. The latter part is of the Gospel, and in it he prophesies the spiritual liberation of the true Israelites, which Christ would accomplish. Some entire statements against the Edomites are common also to Jeremiah 49 and Ezekiel 25.