The Brother at the Crossroads

Obadiah means “servant of the LORD”, a common name, borne also by Ahab’s God-fearing steward (1 Kings 18:3), and nothing more is known of this one. The Old Testament’s shortest book opens with lines that Jeremiah 49:14–16 repeats almost exactly. The “ambassador” is an envoy rousing nations to war.

“Small” is qatan, the word Amos used for Jacob (Amos 7:2). “Despised” is the verb of Genesis 25:34, where “Esau despised his birthright”. The nation descended from the man who despised is now the one despised.

“The rock” is sela, which was also the name of an Edomite stronghold, Sela, taken by Amaziah of Judah (2 Kings 14:7). Edom’s red sandstone ranges rise steeply east of the Arabah, with gorges and cliff dwellings that made its towns hard to reach.

The nesher, eagle or griffon vulture, nests on sheer cliffs, as Job 39:27–28 describes: “she dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock”. “Among the stars” is the boast of the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14:13, “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God”.

The law required grape harvesters to leave gleanings for the poor (Leviticus 19:10), so even a picked vineyard kept something. “How art thou cut off!” breaks into the sentence with the dirge word eikh, “how”, the first word of Lamentations. Jeremiah 49:9 has the same pair of images.

The nation is called by its ancestor’s name, Esau. “Searched out” is the verb for a search item by item, as Joseph’s steward went through every sack (Genesis 44:12). Edom grew rich on the caravan roads and on copper mines in the Arabah, and its wealth was stored in the rock.

“They that eat thy bread” are table companions; Psalm 41:9 grieves over “mine own familiar friend… which did eat of my bread”. To bring someone “to the border” is to escort them out of the country. The “wound” is a word for a trap or net laid underneath.

Edom was proverbial for wisdom, which is why Jeremiah 49:7 asks, “Is wisdom no more in Teman?” The “mount of Esau” is Seir, the mountain country where “dwelt Esau” (Genesis 36:8). The question is phrased to expect yes: the thinkers are the first to be removed.

Teman, a leading district, stands for the whole of Edom. The Greek and several modern versions attach “by slaughter” to the next verse, reading “for the slaughter and for the violence against thy brother”. “Dismayed” means shattered with terror.

The grudge was old: after the stolen blessing Esau said, “then will I slay my brother Jacob” (Genesis 27:41). “Violence” is chamas, the word Joel 3:19 also uses of Edom. Shame covering someone is pictured as a garment, as in Psalm 109:29.

“Stoodest on the other side” is standing aloof, a spectator keeping his distance. The day is most likely Babylon’s capture of Jerusalem in 586 BC, which Psalm 137:7 remembers the same way: “Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it.”

Eight prohibitions run through verses 12–14, each “do not”, spoken as if Obadiah stood beside Edom at the moment and could still stop him. “Spoken proudly” is literally “made thy mouth great”, the wide-open mouth of mockery in Psalm 35:21: “Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it.”

“Calamity” is eyd, used three times in this one verse, and eydam, “their calamity”, sounds almost like Edom. The disaster is given the name of the one who exploited it. God calls Jerusalem “my people” here, the only time in the book.

The “crossway” is a fork in the road or a mountain pass, where refugees leaving Jerusalem had to go. Zedekiah fled that way and was caught near Jericho (2 Kings 25:4–5). Amos accused Gaza and Tyre of delivering up captives to Edom (Amos 1:6, 9); now Edom does the delivering.

The principle is the wording of the law of retaliation: “as he hath done, so shall it be done to him” (Leviticus 24:19). “Reward” is gemul, what one has dealt out. “The day of the LORD is near” is the cry of Joel 1:15 and Zephaniah 1:7.

The cup of God’s wrath passing from nation to nation is the picture of Jeremiah 25:15–28. Lamentations 4:21 addresses Edom directly with it: “the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken.” “Swallow down” is to gulp until one reels.

“Deliverance” is peletah, those who escape, a surviving remnant; Joel 2:32 quotes this line, “as the LORD hath said”. “Possess their possessions” means take back their own inheritances; the Greek reads it as possessing those who had dispossessed them.

Jacob and Joseph together mean south and north, both kingdoms restored. Exodus 15:7 has God’s wrath consuming enemies “as stubble”. “Remaining” is sarid, a survivor. Edom did vanish as a people: its descendants, the Idumaeans, were absorbed into Judaism in the second century BC; Herod the Great was one of them.

Each region spreads into the land beside it: the Negev in the south up into Edom’s mountains, the Shephelah lowland out to the Philistine coast, the returning tribes into the old northern territory of Ephraim and Samaria, and Benjamin east across the Jordan into Gilead.

Zarephath was a Phoenician town between Tyre and Sidon, where Elijah lodged with the widow (1 Kings 17:9). Sepharad is uncertain; an Aramaic inscription from Sardis in Asia Minor uses the name, and later Jewish tradition took it as Spain, which is why Spanish Jews are called Sephardim.

“Saviours” is the word used for the judges God raised up, as Othniel was “a deliverer” (Judges 3:9), and Nehemiah 9:27 recalls, “thou gavest them saviours”. The last line echoes Psalm 22:28, “For the kingdom is the LORD’s: and he is the governor among the nations.”