This was the view of Ewald, and is adopted substantially by Kuenen, Cornill, Wildeboer, Driver, etc. According to Ewald (so also G. A. Smith), the later prophet lived in the Captivity (v.29, which Ewald renders ‘of this coast’). The occasion of the earlier ad Ewald (improbably) ae to have been when Elath was restored by Rezin to the Edomites (2 K 168 Keré and RVm), and its author to have been a contemporary of Isaiah. Ko6nig, who accepts the view that Obadiah consists of a pre-exilic and an exilic or post-exilic portion, analyzes thus: (a) vv.1-10 (but v.7, whose concluding words are pleo- nastic alongside of v.8, is probably an expansion; perhaps also v.9 on account of the late Ὁ] 184. 18. 195 300; (Ὁ) vy.11-15. 16b. 17. 190. 200. 21, robable that
It appears, upon the whole, most elong to the
not only the Exile but the Return
ast. Note that there is no prediction of the re-
uilding and re-populating of the capital, Jeru- salem. The expressions in the closing verses are best satisfied by a date such as Nowack postulates for vv.?"4 (c, 432 B.C.), or, perhaps preferably, later still. It is unfortunate that the text and the meaning of these verses are so doubtful.
A good deal has been built on the mention in y.7 ™) of Sepharad or (see Driver, ΚΟ 7 δ p. 320) Stphdaréd, for which the LXX has, AB ᾿Εφραθά, Q* Σαφαράδ, Q® Σφραθά. Targ. Onk. gives xyp29x, t.e. Hispania, Spain; hence the origin of the name ΩΣ for Spanish as distinguished from German (As/- kenazim) Jews. If the MT is correct, the reference will be either to cpanis of the Persian inscriptions, which lay in Bithynia or Galatia—a district con-
uered by Cyrus and organized into a satrapy by ΣΞΩΣ ystaspis—or Shaparda in S.W. Media, mentioned in inscriptions of Sargon (B.C. 721-705). The latter reference is adopted by Schrader (Keilin- schrift u. Geschichtsforschung, 116 ff., KAT?, 446 f. (COT ii. 145f.]), and is ese ‘exceedingly probable’ by Frd. Delitzsch (Paradies, 249). Sayce (HCM 482 ff.) and Cheyne (Founders of OT Criticism, 311 1.) contend for Cparda (G. A. Smith, who believes the later part of Obadiah to have been written during the Exile, would hold, if Cparda is meant, that the reference to it is a late insertion). While Sayce is content to postulate a ‘compara- tively late date’ for the prophecy, Cheyne would definitely assign it to the period (c. 350 B.C.) when Artaxerxes Ochus deported many Jews who had taken part in the great revolt against the Persian supremacy. 01 3°(‘the children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have e sold unto the Grecians [Jévanim), that ye might remove them far from their border’) may refer to this. It is noteworthy that in the inscriptions Cparda is always mentioned in immediate connexion with Jaund,
* For this conception, of. Zeph 12% 35, Jer 255%, Ezk 36-38 Is 4529 680 0016. 186, * Ig’ 341-9, Zoo 12% 4 142 2.13}
580 OBADIAH, BOOK OF
OBED-EDOM
* Greeks.’
i.e. ‘Tonians’ See, further, art. SEPHARAD.
Cornill considers that the late prophecies ‘Is’ 34. 35, in which, as in Obadiah, eacatnlocioal hopes are connected with the downfall of Edom, were certainly known to the author of Obadiah.
The following parallels between Obadiah and Joel may be noted: Ob” and 7] 4 [Eng. 3] 1" have cond in common ; Ob" and J1 4 (Eng. 3] 35 both contain the expression 53!3 rm ‘they cast lots,’ which is found elsewhere only in Nah 3; Ob*® and Jl 4 (Eng. 3] 16; Ob? and J] 35 (Eng. 933] 4 [Eng. 3]}”. In all these instances the probability appears to be that it is Joel who quotes from Obadiah and not vice versa (see ἃ. Buchanan Gray in Expositor, Sept. 1893, p. 208 ff., and οἵ. Cheyne, Founders of OF Gritciom, 312, and Driver, Joel and Amos, 19 ff).
iv. CONDITION OF TEXT, LITERARY CHARACTER- ISTICS, ETC.—The text of Obadiah is in several in- stances corrupt, and in not a few cases suspected of being so. It may, indeed, be suggested that Well- hausen and Nowack are unduly suspicious of the MT, and that the former is rather fond of dropping sarcastic remarks such as that on y.7: ‘von apap px ‘a selber gilt—es ist kein Sinn darin.’ Still the number of blanks which both these scholars leave in their translation of Obadiah and the frequent emendations they propose give a fairly correct impression of the condition of the text. The following may be noted as points connected with the vocabulary and the text that merit attention—
or
y.2. 0783, the original reading, was probably corrupted into ἽΝ first by the loss of its final Ὁ and then by the change of the initial 3 into Ὁ.
v.53. °yDA must be supplied from Jer 4916 before Οὐ.
y.4, O°” must be changed into ΟΠ (LXX θῇ).
vy.57, The exclamation 79°D7} 9’S and the whole of v.6 (in which Edom is spoken of in the 3rd person instead of being di- rectly addressed, as formerly, by ‘ thou’) are regarded by Wellh. and Nowack as interpolated. There can be little doubt that ‘17 ON should be deleted.—Note in v.6 the gw. λεγ. ὙΠ ΒΝ
his treasures.’—v.7> is hopelessly corrupt. 1D, which in Hos 615, Is 16 means ‘running sore,’ cannot have the sense of ‘snare’ established for it. The LXX ἔνεδρα may rest upon a reading 1)sD or π ΧΟ ; Chald. has x5pn, Syr. Aquila’s rendering ἰσίδεσις (ct. his tr® of 71D in Hos 513 by συνδεσικός) implies same text as MT. 7075, which is wanting in LXX, and to which it is very hard in the context to give a tolerable sense, has probably arisen by dittography from the preceding ρου, Hitzig and Graetz propose to supply ‘Y3x before it (‘the men who ate thy bread’). It may be noted that v.7 is in the kinah measure (see LAMENTATIONS (BOOK oF], p. 20>); cf. Jer 3822b, whose relation to Obadiah is doubtful, Bat it is clear that one of the two passages must have served as the model for the other (Driver, LOT 6 $20). v.10. 957, if genuine, should be attached to the beginning of v.10 (so LXX, Syr. Vulg.), but it may have been originally a marginal gloss to O>9D. Ewald, who gives it the same posi- tion as MT, takes it as=‘ without battle.’