6. The fifth named of the six sois of Azel (1 Chron. viii, 38; ix, 44), and a descendant of Jonathan, son of Saul, in the tenth generation. B.C. cir. 720.
7. A Merarite Levite, who with Jahath was overseer of the workmen in the restoration of the Temple under Josiah (2 Chron. xxxiv, 12). B.C. G23.
8. The fourth of the minor prophets, according to the arrangement of the Hebrew and English texts, and the fifth in that of the Septuagint. As we know nothing certain of him except what we can gather from the very short prophecy which bears his name, we shall find it most convenient to consider him personally in connec- tion with his book. In doing this we make much use of the article in iim\th''s Diet, of the Bibh', with additions from other sources.
1. Date. — The attempts to identify him with one or other of the persons of the same name mentioned in Scripture are mere unfounded conjectures. Entirely baseless also is the suggestion of Augusti [Einleit. § 225) that n'l'ISjJ, in the title of this prophecy, is an appellative^a servant of Jehorafi, or "some pious per- son ;" for the word is never so used, and all the ancient versions give it as a proper name; nor is there any ground for the assertion of Abarbanel that he was an Idumrean, who, on becoming a proselyte to Judaism, took the name of servant or worshipper of Jehovah {Pr(rf. in Ezech. p. 153, col. 4; see also Jarchi on ver. 1 of the Prophecy). The Targum on 2 Kings iv, 1, and Josephus (.4 nf. ix, 2), followed by Christians, e.g. Jerome, as well as Jews, e. g. Kimchi, Abarbanel, etc., identify this Obadiah with the husband of that woman " of the wives of the sons of the prophets" who sought the pro- tection of Elisha for her two sons from their father's creditor (2 Kings iv, 1); for of Obadiah, the governor
of Abab's house, it is said that he "feared the Lord greatly," and of the husband of this widow that he " did fear the Lord ;" and it is supposed that the gift of proph- ecy was conferred on him as a reward for his singular faith and clemenc}'.
The question of his date must depend upon the inter- pretation of the 11th and 20th verses of his prophecy. He there speaks of the conquest of Jerusalem and the captivity of Jacob. If he is referring to the well-known captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, he must have lived at the time of the Babylonian captivity, and prophesied subse- quently to the year B.C. 5S8. If. further, his prophecy against Edom found its first fidfilment in the conquest of that country by Nebuchadnezzar in the year B.C. 583, we have its date fixed. It must have been uttered at some time in the five years which intervened between these two dates.
Jiiger (so also Jahn and others) argues at length for an earlier date. He admits that ver. 11 refers to a capture of Jerusalem, but maintains that it may apply to its capture by Shishak in the reign of Kelioboam (1 Kings xiv, 25; 2 Chron. xii, 2); by the Philistines and Arabians in the reign of Jehoram (2 Cliron. xxi, 16); by Joash in the reign of Amaziah (xxv, 22): or by the C'halda?ans in the reigns of Jehoiakim and of Jehoiacliin (2 Kings xxiv, 2 and 10). The Idumreans might, he argues, have joined the enemies of Judah on anj' of these occasions, as their inveterate hostility from an early date is proved by several passages of Scripture, e. g. Joel iii, 19; Amos i, 11. He thinks it probable that the occasion referred to by Obadiah is the capture of Jerusalem by the Ephraimites in the reign of Ama- ziah (2 Chron. xxv, 22). The utmost force of these statements is to prove a possibility. Hengstenberg {Gesch. Bileams, p. 253), Hfivernick {Einleit. ii, 321), and Caspari (^Der Froph. Obadjah), while admitting that the prophecy relates to the time of the captivity, would assign an earlier date to its composition, placing that in the reign of Uzziah, and regarding the reference to the Chaktean invasion as prophetic.
The only argimnent of any weight for the early date of Obadiah is his position in the list of the books of the minor prophets. Why should he have been inserted between Amos and Jonah if his date is about B.C. 585? Schnurrer seems to answer this question satisfactorily when he says that the prophecy of Obadiah is an ampli- fication of the last five verses of Amos, and was there- fore placed next after the book of Amos. Tlie conclu- sion in favor of the later date assigned to him is that of most critics, including Pfeiffer, Schnurrer, Eosenmliller, De Wette, HcndewOrk, and Maurer, and the English commentators generally.
2. Orujinality. — The exceeding brevity of this proph- ecy gives no good reason to regard it (with Eichhorn and others) as only a fragment of a longer writing. It is a compact and complete composition, and has no ap- pearance of having been detached from another work.
From a comparison of Obad. ver. 1-4 with Jcr. xlix, 14-16; Obad. ver. 6 with Jer. xlix, 9, 10; and Obad. ver. 8 with Jer, xlix, 7, it is evident that there was some connection between the two works. It is not easy, observes Calmet, to decide whether one of the two was copied from the other, or whether both were borrowed from a common source (see Home's Introd. ii, 955, 10th ed.) ; but from the fact that Jeremiah had made use of the writings of other prophets also, it has generally been concluded that Obadiah was the original writer (see Eichhorn, Einleit. § 512 ; Kosenm idler. Scholia, and Jiiger, Ueh. die Zeit Obadjah's). That Obadiah borrow- ed from Jeremiah has been maintained by Credner, De Wette, and others. De Wette supposes (Inti-od. § 235) that Obadiah made use of Jeremiah from recollection ; Bertholdt {^Einl. iv, 1627) that no prophet of the name ever lived. Those who give an early date to Obadiah thereby settle the question of borrowing. Those who place him later leave the question open, as he would in that case be a contemporary of Jeremiah. Luther