The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

General Editor:—J. J. S. PEROWNE, D.D.,

Dean of Peterborough

OBADIAH AND JONAH,

WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTION

BY

THE VEN. T. T. PEROWNE, B.D.

archdeacon of norwich;

late fellow of corpus christi college, cambridge

EDITED FOR THE SYNDICS OF THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge:

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

1889

[All Rights reserved.]

PREFACE

BY THE GENERAL EDITOR

The General Editor of The Cambridge Bible for Schools thinks it right to say that he does not hold himself responsible either for the interpretation of particular passages which the Editors of the several Books have adopted, or for any opinion on points of doctrine that they may have expressed. In the New Testament more especially questions arise of the deepest theological import, on which the ablest and most conscientious interpreters have differed and always will differ. His aim has been in all such cases to leave each Contributor to the unfettered exercise of his own judgment, only taking care that mere controversy should as far as possible be avoided. He has contented himself chiefly with a careful revision of the notes, with pointing out omissions, with suggesting occasionally a reconsideration of some question, or a fuller treatment of difficult passages, and the like.

Beyond this he has not attempted to interfere, feeling it better that each Commentary should have its own individual character, and being convinced that freshness and variety of treatment are more than a compensation for any lack of uniformity in the Series.

Deanery, Peterborough.

CONTENTS

I.  Introduction to OBADIAH.

  I.  The Author

  II.  The Date

  III.  The Contents

II.  Notes

III.  Introduction to JONAH.

Chapter I. The Author

Chapter II. Historical Character of the Book

Chapter III. Object of the Book

Chapter IV. Analysis of Contents

IV.  Notes

V.  Note A. The Great Fish

  Note B. Nineveh

VI.  Index

*** The Text adopted in this Edition is that of Dr Scrivener’s Cambridge Paragraph Bible. A few variations from the ordinary Text, chiefly in the spelling of certain words, and in the use of italics, will be noticed. For the principles adopted by Dr Scrivener as regards the printing of the Text see his Introduction to the Paragraph Bible, published by the Cambridge University Press.

INTRODUCTION

I. The Author

Of the personal history of Obadiah nothing is known. The name which he bears, “servant of Yah,” or “worshipper of Yah,” is a common one in the Old Testament. We are specially familiar with it as borne by the godly chamberlain of Ahab in the time of Elijah (1 Kings 18:3-16). But neither with him, nor with any other of the persons who are called by it in the sacred history, can the author of this Book be identified.

II. The Date

Considerable difference of opinion exists with reference to the time when Obadiah lived and prophesied. The dates assigned to him by different critics range over a period of several centuries. The principal considerations, on which the decision of the question depends, are

1. The place which he occupies among the Minor Prophets;

2. The capture of Jerusalem to which he refers in vv. 11–14; and

3. The subject-matter which he has in common with other Old Testament writers.

1. With respect to the first of these considerations, it is true that the order in which the Minor Prophets are placed in the arrangement of the Canon is, as a general rule, so far chronological, that the place which is occupied by a prophet should be taken into the account in assigning to him his date. The twelve are broken into two chief groups. The eight (omitting Obadiah) which stand first belong to the period before the captivity in Babylon. The three which stand last came after that event. If, therefore, Obadiah lived and prophesied at the time of the capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, we should expect to find him placed, not where we do, between Amos who prophesied in the reigns of Uzziah in Judah and Jeroboam II. in Israel (Amos 1:1), and Jonah who was probably of about the same date (2 Kings 14:25, comp. Introd. to Jonah, c. 1.), but between the two groups of prophets who flourished respectively before and after the captivity, i. e. immediately before Haggai. It has been suggested, however, that the weight of this consideration is counterbalanced by the fact, that the prophecy of Obadiah is in effect an expansion of the short prediction against Edom, which occurs at the close of the prophecy of Amos (Amos 9:12). This fact may account for the departure from chronological order in the case of Obadiah by the framers of the Canon, and may be a sufficient reason for his being placed among those earlier prophets, who were not really his contemporaries.

2. The second principal consideration connected with the date of this Book is the reference which it contains to the capture of Jerusalem. We know from Old Testament history of four occasions on which that city was taken. Can we then identify the capture here referred to with any one of them? And if so, how far does it help us to decide the time at which Obadiah lived?

(a) Jerusalem was taken by Shishak king of Egypt in the reign of Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:25-26; 2 Chronicles 12:1-12). But we read in the Book of Chronicles that the king and his nobles humbled themselves under the rebuke of Shemaiah the prophet, and that consequently Shishak, though he carried away the treasures both of the Temple and of the palace, did not inflict such evils either on the city or on its inhabitants as Obadiah describes. This therefore cannot be the incident referred to.

(b) For similar reasons Obadiah’s description cannot be held to refer to the sacking of Jerusalem by the Philistines and Arabians in the reign of Jehoram (2 Chronicles 21:16-17). The blow on that occasion seems to have fallen almost exclusively on the king’s house.

(c) The defeat of Amaziah by Jehoash was followed indeed by the breaking down of the wall of Jerusalem (2 Kings 14:8-14; 2 Chronicles 25:17-24), but the language of Obadiah is descriptive of some more terrible calamity and “destruction” than that, and the invasion of Judah by an Israelitish army could not be spoken of, as it is by the prophet, as “the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates” (ver. 11).

(d) There only remains therefore to be identified, as the event to which allusion is made by Obadiah, and as adequately satisfying the terms of his description, the capture and destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. We do not find indeed in the historical record of that event any mention of the part taken by the Edomites with the Chaldeans against the Jews; but this fact, for the knowledge of which we are indebted to the graphic utterances of Obadiah, is quite in keeping with the probabilities of the case, and with the ancient and bitter hostility of Edom towards Israel. So early as the time of the Exodus they had churlishly refused them a passage through their country (Numbers 20:14-21), and though conquered by David (2 Samuel 8:14; comp. 1 Kings 9:26), and again with circumstances of great cruelty by Amaziah (2 Chronicles 25:11-12), they avenged themselves in later years during the decline of the Jewish kingdom, by recovering their lost cities and making incursions into southern Palestine (2 Kings 16:6; where “Edomites” (R.V.) and not “Syrians” (A.V.) is now generally received as the true reading; 2 Chronicles 28:17). It is only natural therefore to suppose, that when Nebuchadnezzar advanced against Jerusalem the Edomites gladly welcomed the opportunity of revenge, and joining his forces exultingly bore their part in the degradation and ruin of their ancient foe.

When, however, we have thus succeeded in fixing the historical event which Obadiah has in view, it is important clearly to understand how far it helps us to determine the time at which he wrote.

There can be no doubt that as is now generally admitted the rendering of the A.V. in vv. 11–14, “Thou shouldest not have,” “Neither shouldest thou have,” etc. is grammatically incorrect. What the prophet really says is—

“In the day of thy standing on the other side, in the day of strangers carrying away captive his forces, when foreigners entered into his gates and cast lots upon Jerusalem, thou too (wast) as one of them. But look not on the day of thy brother in the day of his becoming a stranger, and rejoice not at the children of Judah in the day of their destruction, and enlarge not thy mouth in the day of trouble. Enter not into the gate of my people in the day of their destruction. Look not, thou too, on their calamity in the day of their destruction, and stretch not forth (thy hand) on their substance in the day of their destruction. And stand not at the cross-way to cut off his fugitives, and deliver not up his survivors in the day of trouble.”

Now here the prophet clearly regards the calamity to which he refers as having already come upon Jerusalem, and he sees the Edomites already engaged as abettors in that calamity, and earnestly dissuades them from the course which they are pursuing. It is obvious that he might well have used this language, and that all the conditions required by the passage would have been satisfactorily fulfilled, if he had written immediately after the sacking of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and when, as may not improbably have been the case, the Edomites and other neighbouring tribes were still harassing the Jews, even after Nebuchadnezzar’s army had been withdrawn. In this case the prophet would be simply describing what had just gone on, or was then actually going on, under his own eyes. He would be the historian of the past as regards Edom’s sin; the foreteller of the future only as regards his punishment.

But when the nature of prophecy is taken into account we are met by the consideration, that in the language before us Obadiah may be describing not that which was already past or present when he lived and wrote, but only that which was past or present as regards the point of time into which in prophetic vision he was rapt. In other words that he was borne by the spirit of prophecy into the future, and looked thence upon the sin of Edom as already done or doing, although in point of fact it had not yet been perpetrated.

No safe conclusion therefore as to Obadiah’s date can be drawn from his language in this place. The drama enacted before his eyes may equally well, so far as his description of it is concerned, recall the past, or anticipate the future. In itself considered it determines nothing as to the date of the prophecy.

We must then fall back upon other considerations. And here the probability would certainly seem to be, that Obadiah is commissioned to foretell the punishment of Edom for the recent wrongdoing which he so vividly depicts. His prophecy would thus have been delivered shortly after the destruction of the city, or between its first capture and final destruction, by the Chaldeans. The argument that that event could not have happened when the prophet wrote, because God does not warn men against sins already committed, rests on the assumption that it is a warning, which the prophet is here directed to convey. But it may equally well have been a denunciation of sin already committed, on account of which the threatened judgment was about to fall. And that it is so is rendered probable by the consideration, that the prophecy was not apparently designed for the warning of the Edomites, whom so far as we know it never reached, but for the comfort and encouragement of the faithful amongst the Jews, to whom it gave assurance not only of the approaching overthrow of Edom and restoration of Israel, but of that far brighter and more glorious future, of which those nearer fulfilments of the prophecy were the type and the pledge.

3. The probability as to the date of Obadiah, which has been thus arrived at, gains strength when we lay the contents of his prophecy beside those of other Old Testament Books, in which a similarity of language or of subject may be traced, and of which the date has been satisfactorily ascertained.

(a) Such a similarity of thought and diction has been supposed to exist between the prophets Obadiah and Joel. Some persons have even gone so far as to affirm that the words “as the Lord hath said” (Joel 2:32 [Hebrews 3:5]), point to a prophetic word already known, viz.: to Obadiah 1:17 (Keil), and that therefore Obadiah must have been the contemporary or precursor of Joel. But the phrase, “as the Lord hath said,” may be merely that claim on the part of Joel of divine origin and authority for his own utterances, which is so commonly made by other prophets; and the expressions used by the two writers though similar are by no means identical. The whole verse in Joel is—

“And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call;”

and in Obadiah

“But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.”

The resemblance between these two verses is far too slight to justify the assumption that one is a quotation from the other, and the rather because the subject to which they refer is different in the two prophets. The same may be said of the other expressions which Joel and Obadiah have in common. They are not of a character to warrant the conclusion, that one of these writers borrowed them from the other. Even if they were, it would obviously remain to be decided to which of them they originally belonged. But indeed the theory of quotation may easily be pressed too far in the case of the Old Testament writers. We need not always suppose that “a man has bored a hole in another man’s tank,” because his thoughts flow in the same channel, or clothe themselves in the same language.

(b) The relation of Obadiah to Jeremiah is of a very different kind. It is impossible to lay side by side the denunciation of Edom by Obadiah (vv. 1–9) and the prophecy of Jeremiah on the same subject (Jeremiah 49:7-22) without being convinced that they are either derived from a common source or that one of them is a reproduction of the other.

The theory of a common source is naturally adopted by that school of critics, whose rôle it is to reduce the writings of the Old Testament to a kind of literary patch-work; requiring us to believe on the evidence of supposed differences of style and language, which their critical faculty can detect, that the component elements of a Book, a verse here and a paragraph there, are to be attributed to different dates and authors. To such free handling this short prophecy has been subjected. The first section of it (vv. 1–7), we are told, “looks as if it had been taken from a larger work of our prophet’s, in which he had given a collection of Oracles concerning foreign nations. He knew quite well from the sources of his collection that the piece concerning Edom, which he wished to place as the superstructure above his own, was by a prophet Obadiah; and we have no reason to doubt the historical accuracy of his knowledge[1].” (Ewald). The second section (vv. 8–15), according to this critic, is composed of three verses (8–10) from the old prophet, followed by four of the compiler’s own (11–14), and then by another from the ancient source. The third section is in like manner composite, v. 16 being written by the compiler, vv. 17, 18, borrowed as before, and vv. 19–21 written by himself again. But this kind of criticism, always arbitrary and precarious, seems nowhere more out of place than in the brief prophecy of Obadiah. As a literary composition this short piece is a complete and united whole. The train of thought is quite unbroken. The style is uniform. The parts cohere perfectly. On this account it seems difficult to believe, that Obadiah had before him the substance of any earlier prophecy which he incorporated into his own, or that he culled and fitted together scattered sentences from Jeremiah.

[1] This older prophet, we are told, the true Obadiah, whose name has been left standing by the later compiler of our present Book of Obadiah, lived and prophesied at the time of the inroads of Rezin and Pekah, which have been referred to above (2 Kings 16:6; 2 Chronicles 28:17). “Cheated of their hopes in this direction (Jerusalem), they seem to have directed their whole strength, as a preliminary measure, to the conquest of the ample territories beyond the Jordan, extending to the bay of Elath, which had been retained ever since their acquisition under Uzziah; and in this quarter their undertaking was completely successful. King Rezin, who appears throughout as far more powerful than Pekah, conquered the whole of these possessions of Judah as far as Elath on the Red Sea, banished all the Jews, even those who had doubtless been settled there for a long time for purposes of commerce, from this important commercial city, and restored it again to the Idumeans, who from that time established themselves there still more firmly than before. The Idumeans themselves, when freed from the dominion of Judah, refortified in the strongest manner their rocky capital (Sela, Petra), and were once more in a position to indulge to the fullest extent their ancient propensity of falling upon the cities of Judah in marauding expeditions.… These events afforded occasion to Obadiah, a contemporary prophet of Jerusalem, to direct the word of God against the pride of the Idumeans, which had suddenly swollen to such a height.” Ewald, History of Israel, iv. 159 (Carpenter’s Translation).

The most probable conclusion is, that Obadiah, stirred by the recent wrongs inflicted by the Edomites upon his people, wrongs which perhaps he had himself witnessed, was commissioned to pour forth this brief denunciation against them; while Jeremiah, his contemporary, took up and repeated shortly after in his own more elaborate parable of reproach much of what his brother prophet had uttered. This view accords with the fact that the matter common to the two is contained in a short consecutive passage of eight verses in Obadiah, while it is scattered over a paragraph of sixteen verses in Jeremiah and is set in additional matter of his own. It accords also with the use which Jeremiah elsewhere makes of earlier prophecies than his own (comp. Jeremiah 48:29-30, with Isaiah 16:6, and Jeremiah 49:27 with Amos 1:4). On the whole, it seems not unlikely that Obadiah prophesied in or about the year in which Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, b.c. 588 or 587, and that Jeremiah, whose Book is not arranged in chronological order, and to whose prophecy against Edom no certain date can on internal evidence be assigned, delivered that prophecy shortly afterwards.

It is a confirmation of this view that the Book of Lamentations written by Jeremiah at the time when the horrors attendant upon the capture of Jerusalem were being enacted before his eyes, contains a prophecy of the coming destruction of Edom and recovery of the daughter of Zion, which is in substance identical with the prophecy of Obadiah. “Rejoice, and be glad,” the prophet cries in bitter irony, “O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz.” Exult maliciously as thou dost in the calamity of Jerusalem; but know that thy malicious triumph is but for a moment. “The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.” But for the daughter of Zion a happy future of restoration from captivity and of Messianic hope beyond is in store. Her pardon is complete, and stands out in bright contrast with the punishment with which the prophet again threatens Edom. “The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins” (Lamentations 4:21-22).

(c) Two other Old Testament denunciations against Edom belong to the same period of Jewish history, and serve to throw light upon the prophecy of Obadiah. The prophet Ezekiel exercising his office during the captivity in Babylon, at the commencement of which we have seen reason to place the cruel conduct of the Edomites and Obadiah’s condemnation of it, delivers two predictions of woe against them. In the first and shorter of these it is for the same reason that Obadiah alleges, viz., “because that Edom hath dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and hath greatly offended and revenged himself upon them,” that destruction is to come upon him. And in this also the two prophets are agreed, viz., that Israel is the destined minister of God’s wrath against Edom. “I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel” (Ezekiel 25:12-14; comp. Obadiah 1:18). In the longer and later prophecy the same cause is given, the continuous character of the hatred which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem being pointed out, for the coming doom of Edom. “Thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end” (Ezekiel 35:5; comp. v. 15). Here however the prophecy of Edom’s impending doom (Ezekiel 35:1-15) is followed, as in Obadiah, by the joyful announcement of Israel’s approaching prosperity (Ezekiel 36:1-15).

(d) There remains a yet later reference to the crowning injury inflicted by Edom upon Israel, which it is interesting to notice in this connection. It occurs in the cxxxviith Psalm. “In all probability the writer was a Levite, who had been carried away by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar when Jerusalem was sacked and the Temple destroyed, and who was one of the first, as soon as the edict of Cyrus was published, to return to Jerusalem. He is again in his own land. He sees again the old familiar scenes. The mountains and the valleys that his foot trod in youth are before him. The great landmarks are the same, and yet the change is terrible. The spoiler has been in his home, his vines and his fig trees have been cut down, the House of his God is a heap of ruins. His heart is heavy with a sense of desolation, and bitter with the memory of wrong and insult from which he has but lately escaped.

“He takes his harp, the companion of his exile, the cherished relic of happier days,—the harp which he could not string at the bidding of his conquerors by the waters of Babylon; and now with faltering hand he sweeps the strings, first in low, plaintive, melancholy cadence pouring out his griefs, and then with a loud crash of wild and stormy numbers of his verse, he raises the pæan of vengeance over his foes.… As he broods over his wrongs, as he looks upon the desolation of his country, as he remembers with peculiar bitterness how they who ought to have been allies took part with the enemies of Jerusalem in the fatal day of her overthrow, there bursts forth the terrible cry for vengeance; vengeance first on the false kindred, and next on the proud conquerors of his race.

“Deepest of all was the indignation roused by the sight of the nearest of kin, the race of Esau, often allied to Judah, often independent, now bound by the closest union with the power that was truly the common enemy of both. There was an intoxication of delight in the wild Edomite chiefs, as at each successive stroke against the venerable walls they shouted, ‘Down with it! down with it! even to the ground.’ They stood in the passes to intercept the escape of those who would have fled down to the Jordan valley; they betrayed the fugitives; they indulged their barbarous revels on the Temple hill. Long and loud has been the wail of execration which has gone up from the Jewish nation against Edom. It is the one imprecation which breaks forth from the Lamentations of Jeremiah: it is the culmination of the fierce threats of Ezekiel: it is the sole purpose of the short, sharp cry of Obadiah; it is the bitterest drop in the sad recollections of the Israelite captives by the waters of Babylon: and the one warlike strain of the Evangelical Prophet is inspired by the hope that the Divine Conqueror should come knee-deep in Idumæan blood (Lamentations 4:21-22; Ezekiel 25:8; Ezekiel 25:12-14; Obadiah 1:1-21; Jeremiah 49:7-22; Isaiah 63:1-4).” Perowne on the Psalms, and Stanley, Jewish Church, ii. p. 556, as quoted there.

III. The Contents

1. The prophecy flows on in one continuous and unbroken whole; but it may for convenience be divided into two principal parts or sections:

i.  The destruction of Edom (vv. 1–16).

ii.  The restoration of Israel (vv. 17–21).

The first of these sections has again three paragraphs, or subsections, of which the first (vv. 1–9) announces the punishment of Edom; the second (vv. 10–14) is a quasi-parenthesis, giving the reason why the punishment has come upon her; and the third (vv. 15, 16) resumes the denunciation against Edom and extends it to the heathen generally.

The following is a brief analysis of the whole:—

The prophet is charged with heavy tidings from Jehovah against Edom. The heathen nations are summoned against her to battle and shall bring her low (vv. 1, 2). Confident in the strength of her natural position, safe as she deems herself in the inaccessible rock-hewn chambers and impregnable fastnesses of Petra, she fears no evil. Yet even thence the hand of the Lord will bring her down (vv. 3, 4). It is no ordinary predatory incursion of robber hordes, who take their fill of plunder and depart, that shall overtake her (v. 5). She shall be utterly stripped (v. 6). Her confederates and allies shall treacherously desert and take part against her (v. 7). The famed wisdom of her sages shall fail, and the courage of her valiant men forsake them. Without counsel to guide, or strength to defend her, she shall be brought to complete destruction (vv. 8, 9). The cause of the punishment that shall thus come upon her is the violent and malicious conduct, which, regardless of the ties of kindred and the claims of a common ancestry, she displayed against the children of Israel in the time of their calamity (vv. 10–14). For this, in the approaching day of God’s visitation upon the heathen at large, Edom shall specially come into remembrance before Him, and with the measure with which she has meted it shall be measured to her again (vv. 15, 16). But to the house of Jacob shall deliverance and restoration be vouchsafed (v. 17). They shall be the instruments in God’s hand of completing the punishment of Edom, which the heathen had begun (v. 18). They shall dispossess the invaders of their country, and shall spread in all directions throughout their own land (vv. 19, 20). And this destruction of Edom and restoration of Israel shall eventually issue in the promised, though still future and long-looked for consummation, when “the kingdom shall be the Lord’s” (v. 21).

2. It is evident from this analysis that the Edomites were still in possession of their own land when Obadiah wrote. The natural conformation of that land was, as the prophet intimates, such as might well foster a proud sense of security in a warlike and independent race. The territory of Edom proper comprised a narrow strip, about a hundred miles long by twenty broad, reaching along the eastern side of the Arabah, and extending from nearly the southern extremity of the Dead Sea to Elath at the head of the Arabian gulf. It was throughout a mountainous district, though as is not uncommonly the case in such localities, the clefts and terraces of its rocks and hills abounded in rich and fertile soil. Hence its common Biblical name, “the Mount of Esau” (Obadiah 1:8-9; Obadiah 1:19; Obadiah 1:21) and “Mount Seir” (Genesis 14:6; Deuteronomy 2:1; Deuteronomy 2:5). The ancient capital of Edom appears to have been Bozrah (Genesis 36:33; Isaiah 34:6; Jeremiah 49:13). But when Obadiah wrote Selah or Petra had taken its place. The well-known features of this remarkable city, as regards both the famous defile which was then the chief way of access to it, and the nature of its dwellings, hewn out of the solid rock, were calculated, as Obadiah again reminds us, to raise to the utmost pitch the spirit of haughty defiance, with which the Edomites contemplated the prospect of attack. But the prophet warns them that their confidence is vain. They had made the invasion of Judea by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar an occasion for the cruel and malicious indulgence of their ancient hatred of the Jews. They had aided and abetted in the humiliation of those whom they ought rather to have helped and befriended. For this the prophet announces a two-fold chastisement in store for them.

3. The first blow is to be struck by “the heathen,” to whom the herald of Jehovah is sent to gather them together against Edom, and who are to be the agents and witnesses of her humiliation (Obadiah 1:1-2; Obadiah 1:7). Of the fulfilment of this first prophecy against Edom we have clear historical proof, though we do not possess any definite record of the exact time and circumstances of its accomplishment. We know certainly that at least three centuries before the Christian era Petra was in the possession, not of the Edomites, but of the Nabathæans, a powerful race, who whether descended from Nebaioth the son of Ishmael (Genesis 25:13) or not, were in all probability of Aramaic or Syro-Chaldean origin. (Smith’s Bible Dict. Artt. Edom, Nebaioth.) For Diodorus Siculus relates that Antigonus, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, who at his death succeeded to a part of his dominions, “undertook an expedition against the country of the Arabians who are called Nabathæans[2],” and in the absence of its defenders, by his general Athenæus seized and spoiled Petra. Of the history of the Edomites, from the time of their misconduct at the capture of Jerusalem (b.c. 588), up to the time of this invasion of their former territory by Antigonus (b.c. 312), we do not know enough to enable us certainly to fix the date of their dispossession by the Nabathæans. We learn, however, from Josephus that, in fulfilment of the prophecy of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 43:8-13), “in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, which was the 23rd of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, he made an expedition against Cœle-Syria; and when he had possessed himself of it, he made war against the Ammonites and Moabites, and when he had brought all these nations under subjection, he fell upon Egypt in order to overthrow it[3].” It can hardly be doubted that Edom proper was included in the country thus conquered by Nebuchadnezzar. It would have been a strange oversight to leave that stronghold behind him unsubdued, when he moved forward towards Egypt; and it is observable that in the prophecy of Jeremiah which predicts this very subjection of Ammon and Moab to Nebuchadnezzar, “the king of Edom” is the first potentate summoned to yield (Jeremiah 27:3); while it is added “now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon” (v. 6). It is therefore, to say the least, a highly probable supposition, that Nebuchadnezzar having at this time possessed himself of Edom, transplanted thither a Chaldean colony of Nabathæans, to take the place of the Edomites, whom he had defeated and expelled[4]. But whether this highly probable supposition be accepted or not, the historical fact of the occupation of Petra by the Nabathæans remains, and carries with it the fulfilment of Obadiah’s prediction concerning Edom, that the heathen should “rise up against her in battle”, and dispossess her of her strongholds, and “bring her down to the ground”.

[2] “ἐπεβάλετο στρατεύειν ἐπὶ τήν χώραν τῶνʼ Ἀράβων, τῶν καλουμένων Ναβαταίων.” Diod. Sic. lib. 19. 730–733, where further particulars of a second expedition under Demetrius are given.

[3] Antiq. l. x. c. 9. § 7 (Whiston).

[4] With reference to this Ewald writes: “Accordingly, five years after the destruction of the capital, a new struggle arose, which terminated in the exile of seven hundred and forty-five persons.… (Jeremiah 52:30). At the same time, war had at length openly broken out between the Chaldeans and the Moabites and Ammonites, into which these Judahites certainly allowed themselves to be drawn; and Ishmael then perhaps received the reward he had earned.” Ewald, Hist. of Isr. vol. vi. p. 276 (Carpenter’s Trans.).

4. The second and more complete overthrow of the Edomites was to be effected by the Jews (vv. 18, 19), “delivered” and restored to their own “possessions” (v. 17). The steps in the fulfilment of this prophecy can be very clearly traced. The Edomites, expelled as we have seen from their own country, spread westward, and during the Babylonish captivity and the subsequent depression of the Jews, possessed themselves of the territory of the Amalekites, and of many towns in Southern Palestine, including Hebron. When however the military prowess of the Jews revived in the time of the Maccabees, Judas Maccabæus attacked and defeated the Edomites (b.c. 166), and recovered the cities of Southern Palestine which they had taken[5]. Subsequently (b.c. 135), John Hyrcanus completed the conquest of the Edomites, and compelled them to submit to circumcision and to be merged in the Jewish nation[6]. At a still later period, in the troublous times of the Zealots and of the Roman war (a.d. 66), Simon of Gerasa having gained access to Idumea through the treachery of one of the Edomite generals, “did not only ravage the cities and villages, but lay waste the whole country.” “And”, in the graphic words of Josephus, “as one may see all the woods behind despoiled of their leaves by locusts, after they have been there, so was there nothing left behind Simon’s army, but a desert. Some places they burnt down; some they utterly demolished, and whatsoever grew in the country they either trod it down, or fed upon it; and by their marches they made the ground that was cultivated harder and more tractable than that which was barren. In short there was no sign remaining of those places that had been laid waste, that ever they had a being[7]”.

[5] “But Judas and his brethren did not leave off fighting with the Idumeans; but pressed upon them on all sides, and took from them the city of Hebron, and demolished all its fortifications, and set its towers on fire,” &c. Joseph. Ant. xii. 8, § 6. Comp. 1Ma 5:3; 1Ma 5:65.

[6] “Hyrcanus took also Dora and Marissa, cities of Idumea, and subdued all the Idumeans, and permitted them to stay in the country, if they would circumcise themselves, and make use of the laws of the Jews. And they were so desirous of living in the country of their forefathers, that they submitted to the use of circumcision, and of the rest of the Jewish ways of living. At which time, therefore, this befell them, that they were hereafter no other than Jews” (Ib. xiii. 9, § 1; where see Whiston’s note).

[7] Bell. Jud. iv. c. 9, § 7.

5. But beyond the overthrow of Edom and restoration of Israel, which were literally fulfilled, the prophecy has undoubtedly a wider range, and a more distant scope.

A typical or allegorical meaning has very generally been assigned to Edom in this and other Old Testament prophecies. When their ancient foe had passed away, the Jews, not unnaturally perhaps, recognised Rome, their latest oppressor, in the Edom of their prophets, and comforted themselves with the belief that on this second Edom, as on the first, the predicted vengeance would one day fall. Thus we find their Rabbis asserting that “Janus, the first king of Latium, was grandson of Esau,” and that both Julius Cæsar and Titus were Edomites. When the Roman Empire became Christian, then Christians generally came to be regarded as Edomites by the Jews. The persecutions which Christians have heaped upon them go far, it must be confessed, to justify the reference, and it is scarcely surprising that with modern Jews it is a canon of interpretation that by the Edomites are meant the Christians. Their Messiah when he comes is to gather Israel from all the countries of their dispersion into their own land, and destroy their Edomite, that is Christian, oppressors. (Specimens of this kind of interpretation of the prophecies of Obadiah may be found in the Dictionary of the Bible, Art. Obadiah.) With the Christian Church Edom has been held to represent the enemies of herself and of her Lord, while the restoration of Israel to their own land and their diffusion throughout its limits have been interpreted to signify the spread of Christianity throughout the world. That such an allegorical (Galatians 4:24), or as it is sometimes called spiritual interpretation of Old Testament prophecy, is rightly recognised by the Christian Church we cannot doubt. She has succeeded for the time to the inheritance of Israel of old. Her children are the seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:29). All the promises are theirs (2 Corinthians 1:20). To her and to them all the glowing future belongs. They shall share His throne and His dominion when “the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.”

But the question still remains, whether beyond not only those first literal fulfilments of this and similar Old Testament prophecies, which may be traced in the past or present history of the world, but beyond also that spiritual or allegorical fulfilment of them which the Church of Christ is warranted in claiming and enjoying for herself, there may not lie yet another fulfilment of many of them which, combining both the literal and spiritual features of those earlier fulfilments, and comprehending in its wide embrace the Jew as well as the Gentile, may fully satisfy the conditions and exhaust the terms of those ancient predictions. That such a fulfilment was contemplated, and is to be expected still, it seems reasonable to believe. The canon of interpretation which excludes the Jew, as such, from any participation in the promised future, breaks down continually when we apply it to the prophetical writings of the Old Testament. The literal and the spiritual elements refuse to yield to its requirements. We cannot, without doing violence to language and connection, dissociate the blessing and the curse, heaping all the one upon the Ebal of the Jewish nation, while we crown with all the other the Gerizim of the Church of Christ. Even if these literary difficulties, grammatical, contextual, critical, could be overcome, the New Testament would step in to forbid the process. There too the future of the Jew, as such, is painted in glowing colours (Romans 11). And the history of the Jews throughout the long centuries of their dispersion and oppression, their inextinguishable vitality, their indomitable energy, their remarkable ability and success, their presence as an alien and foreign element, distinct and refusing to merge or to disappear, in every nation of the earth, points in the same direction. It is a standing prophecy not only of their destined conversion as a nation to the faith of Christ, but of their future restoration to their own land. “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob” (Romans 11:26). And then “the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.”