The supporters of a pre-exilic origin for the _whole_ Book of Obadiah have to explain vv. 11-14, which appear to reflect Edom’s conduct at the sack of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar in 586, and they do so in two ways. Pusey takes the verses as predictive of Nebuchadrezzar’s siege. Orelli and others believe that they suit better the conquest and plunder of the city in the time of Jehoram. But, as Calvin has said, “they seem to be mistaken who think that Obadiah lived before the time of Isaiah.”
The question, however, very early arose, whether it was possible to take Obadiah as a unity. Vv. 1-9 are more vigorous and firm than vv. 10-21. In vv. 1-9 Edom is destroyed by nations who are its allies; in vv. 10-21 it is still to fall along with other Gentiles in the general judgment of the Lord.[462] Vv. 10-21 admittedly describe the conduct of the Edomites at the overthrow of Jerusalem in 586; but vv. 1-9 probably reflect earlier events; and it is significant that in them alone occur the parallels to Jeremiah’s prophecy against Edom in 604. On some of these grounds Ewald regarded the little book as consisting of two pieces, both of which refer to Edom, but the first of which was written before Jeremiah, and the second is post-exilic. As Jeremiah’s prophecy has some features more original than Obadiah’s,[463] he traced both prophecies to an original oracle against Edom, of which Obadiah on the whole renders an exact version. He fixed the date of this oracle in the earlier days of Isaiah, when Rezin of Syria enabled Edom to assert again its independence of Judah, and Edom won back Elath, which Uzziah had taken.[464] Driver, Wildeboer and Cornill[465] adopt this theory, with the exception of the period to which Ewald refers the original oracle. According to them, the Book of Obadiah consists of two pieces, vv. 1-9 pre-exilic, and vv. 10-21 post-exilic and descriptive in 11-14 of Nebuchadrezzar’s sack of Jerusalem.
This latter point need not be contested.[466] But is it clear that 1-9 are so different from 10-21 that they must be assigned to another period? Are they necessarily pre-exilic? Wellhausen thinks not, and has constructed still another theory of the origin of the book, which, like Vatke’s, brings it all down to the period after the Exile.
There is no mention in the book either of Assyria or of Babylonia.[467] The allies who have betrayed Edom (ver. 7) are therefore probably those Arabian tribes who surrounded it and were its frequent confederates.[468] They are described as _sending_ Edom _to the border_ (_ib._). Wellhausen thinks that this can only refer to the great northward movement of Arabs which began to press upon the fertile lands to the south-east of Israel during the time of the Captivity. Ezekiel[469] prophesies that Ammon and Moab will disappear before the Arabs, and we know that by the year 312 the latter were firmly settled in the territories of Edom.[470] Shortly before this the Hagarenes appear in Chronicles, and Se’ir is called by the Arabic name Gebal,[471] while as early as the fifth century “Malachi”[472] records the desolation of Edom’s territory by the _jackals of the wilderness_, and the expulsion of the Edomites, who will not return. The Edomites were pushed up into the Negeb of Israel, and occupied the territory round, and to the south of, Hebron till their conquest by John Hyrcanus about 130; even after that it was called Idumæa.[473] Wellhausen would assign Obadiah 1-7 to the same stage of this movement as is reflected in “Malachi” i. 1-5; and, apart from certain parentheses, would therefore take the whole of Obadiah as a unity from the end of the fifth century before Christ. In that case Giesebrecht argues that the parallel prophecy, Jeremiah xlix. 7-22, must be reckoned as one of the passages of the Book of Jeremiah in which post-exilic additions have been inserted.[474]