already been done. It is not God's wont to warn when it is too late to repent, In answer to this, to argne that the prophet, in poetical form, ie describing the past as futnre, seems scarcely sufficient. Rather, the trnth appears to be this : In ver. 11 he is, as we conclnded before, alluding to e. definite captnre of Jerusalem; in the following verses he is warning the Edomites not to act in the manner specified when calamity has overtaken Judah. Judging from what they had done formerly, he snrmises that they will repeat the same condo.et whenever occasion shall arise. He knows well how bitter and unwearied is Edom's hostility against Judah; he has seen how she behaved in the late invasion, how she sided with the enemy and made her gain :from her sister's misfortune; and he nrges her to act not again in this way. Hie prophetic eye looks forward to the fntllI'e calamity that shall befall his country; from the view of the disaster which he had witnessed under Joram, he rises to the vision of a greater and more complete ruin; one is a type and prophecy of the other; and the behavionr of Edom in the former case is a. rehearsal of what she will do in the la.tt.er. If the prophet's words, though nominally addressed to the Edomitee, were not intended as a warning to them, and, as is most probable, never came under their notice, we may regard them as virtually foretelling their action and consequent punishment, and hence imparting comfort to the faithful few with the hope of a glorious futllI'e. The punishment which he invokes is, don btless, primarily the consequence of their recent conduct; but the prediction embraces other crimes of a similar nature, which will increase the penalty when the moment for its judgment eha.11 arrive. Thus far we have seen reason to decide that Obadiah wrote, not directly after the Chaldean invasion, but after the raid of the Philistines and .Axabians, while the catastrophe was still present to men's memory, Again, the enemies are an indefinite mass composed of heathen tribes, not a determinate foe en.eh as the Ohaldeans. And the captives are not taken to the far east, but to the north, to Phrenicia, and to western regions. Of fugitives t"o Egypt no mention is made. With the Chaldean invasion in his view, Obadiah could not have used these expressions. There is another consideration which makes for the same inference, and that is his relation to other prophets. The coincidence of thought and expression between Obadiah and Joel cannot be accidental. One must have been acquainted with the other; or both must have had recourse to a third original. Thus Joel says (ii. 32), "In Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as the Lord hath said;" and Obadiah (ver.17), "In Mount Zion there shall be those that escape." Joel iii. 2, 3, "Whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land; and they have cast lots upon my people;" Obad. 11, "Foreigners entered into his gates, and cast"lots upon Jerusalem." Joel iii. 4, 7, "I will return your recompense upon your own head;" Obacl. 15, "Thy recompense shall return upon thine own head." "The day of the Lord is near" (Joel iii. 14; Obad. 18) ; "Jerusalem shall be holy" (Joel iii. 17); "Moull.t Zion shall be holy" (Obad. 17); "Edom shall be a X INTRODUCTION TO
desolat.e wilderness, for the violenoe done to the children of Judah" (Joel iii. 19); "For the violenoe done to thy brother Jacob sh11,me shall cover thee, and thou she.It be cut off for ever" (Obad. 10). That Joel borrowed from Obadiah, Keil considers proved by the expression in Joel ii. 32 ( accord- ing to the numbering of the English Version), "as the Lord bath said," where, &S we have seen above, he repeats Obadiah's words, which ocour nowhere else. This, however, is not conclusive, as Joel may be merely asserting his own claim of Divine authority, and may not necessarily be quoting another prophet's utterance. Many other critios incline to the opinion that Joel rests on Obadiah; if this could be demonstrated, the dis- pute concerning the date of the latter might be approximately settled. But this opinion is at best presumptive, and depends on snob allegations as that Obadiah never imitates predecessors, except in the one case of an allusion to Balaam's prophecy (vers. 4, 18, etc.); that he is more original than Joel; and that it is not probable that in his short book he should have had race r<ie to others for ideas and expressions. The relation between Obadiah and Jeremiah is capable of more satisfac- tory determination. There are nine verses in the former (vers. 1-9) which are found in the latter (Jer. :rlix. 7-22). In the former these occur con- secutively, and form one connected whole; in the latter they are dispersed over a wider space, aud disnnit.ed by the insertion of other thoughts. The prophecy of Obadiah against Edom is an orderly and regular production, with a beginning, middle, and conclusion, passing on naturally to the climax ; Jeremiah denounces Edom at various times and in various manners, but his prediction has no internal unity, a.nd is not worked up into a perfect whole. Jeremiah, too, has on other occasions borrowed largely from his predeceeeors. It is impossible that Obadiah should have prefaced his work with the words," The rision of Obadiah," and" we have heard tidings from the Lord," if he was ta.king such large extracts from previous writings. A careful inspection of the two prophets (noting especially how Jeremiah has softened the ruggedness and changed the unusual expressions in Obadiah) will lead to the conclusion that Obadiah is the original from whom Jeremiah borrowed, just as he introduces verses from Isaiah in his denunciation of Moab (comp. Jer. xlviii, 43, 44 with lea. :xxiv. 17, 18; and generally Jer. xlviii. with Isa. rv., xvi.), and a passage from Amos (i. 4) in the judgment of Damascus (Jer. :rlix. 27). Thus the prophecy of Obadiah was anterior to that of Jeremiah, whose utterance against Edom belongs to the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Caspari, pp. 14, etc.). The question still remains-How long anterior? Some intimation of the truth may be gleaned from the fact that there are fonnd in Obadiah phrases and sentences common to Amos and Joel, but nothing from writers later than these. If these prophets cited Obadiah, cadi,t qu(Jj8tio; if he quoted them, why did he refer to no later writings? The presnmption is that he lived close to their time. From what has been said, we concln.de that Obadiah is one of the earliest THE BOOK OF OBADIAH. Xl
of the minor prophets, that he lived a.bout the time of Jehoram, and prophesied at le.test (as Dr. P11Bey thinks) during the minority of Joash.
§ IV. GENERAL CHARACTER.