The book of Obadiah only has one chapter! It's one of the shortest books in the Bible. With such a succinct book, you can expect that not much is known about its author, the prophet Obadiah—he keeps it straight to the point and doesn't spend much time on himself. Some scholars believe he was a contemporary of Jeremiah, while others believe he operated around the reign of Jehoram, and yet others place him as a contemporary of Elisha. The latter camps argue that because Obadiah doesn't mention the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, it was probably written before that destruction took place. The earliest date (Obadiah as a contemporary of Elisha) was proposed because Obadiah seems to reference the act that occurs in 2 Chronicles 28:17. No matter which of these dates is the true period in which Obadiah wrote, we can still see that his prophecies were written before they were fulfilled.

Unlike most prophetic books of the Old Testament, Obadiah only talks about judgment on one nation: Edom. Edom was the bitter enemy of Israel, dating back to the rivalry between Esau (Edom) and Jacob (Israel). Despite the two brothers seeming to come to an agreement and make peace with each other, these two nations never got along. Edom joined Israel's enemies in attacking the city (2 Chronicles 28:17) and was not helpful when they were fleeing Egypt during the Exodus (Numbers 20:18). For this reason, God issued a judgment. Obadiah also lists the fact that Edom gloated over the failures of Israel as part of the judgment.

I thought it was interesting that there are a few descriptions of the Edomites that give us a glimpse of their culture. They were said to live in the clefts of the rocks, meaning they lived in the caves. I find this interesting because the other mention of caves in the Bible that come to mind are also negative. It is in a cave that Lot's daughter rape him to produce sons (Genesis 19:30-38) and in Revelation, it is there that the lost go to hide from God's wrath (Revelation 6:15). To this day there is still negativity associated with living in caves via the term "caveman." Another thing I found interesting was that the Edomites were compared to an eagle. Countries have always had mascots, likely why in visions God uses beasts to represent countries (see Daniel 7, Acts 10, and Revelation 13). The eagle was also associated with the Roman empire. Today, the eagle is associated with many countries across the globe, including the United Staes.[3]

For passages like this, I often ask myself what it is saying about my world today. Yes, the primary purpose was to give hope to the Israelites that the Edomites would pay for their behavior, and one could argue that a secondary purpose was for God to prove His ability to reveal the future to His servants. However, there's a reason God preserved this text for us today, long after the name Edom has become a thing of the past.

One of the main condemnations of Edom is that they relished in their brother's pain. We should not mock anyone else's suffering! We should also be willing to help our brothers and sisters when they are in need. We can learn from Edom's mistakes to ensure that we don't behave the same way.

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