Book of Obadiah

• Isaiah
• Jeremiah

• Lamentations
• Baruch including letter of Jeremiah

• Ezekiel (Ezekiel )
• Book of Daniel ( accessories)

• Hosea
• Joel
• Amos
• Obadiah
• Jonah
• Micha
• Nahum
• Habakkuk
• Zephaniah
• Haggai
• Zechariah
• Malachi

The book of Obadiah is part of the Twelve Prophets of the Jewish Tanakh and the Christian Old Testament. With 21 verses it is there the shortest book.

Author

Obadiah ( עֹבַדְיָה ) is called in the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate Obdias or Abdias. About him we know only what results from his book. He came therefore from Judah.

Its name means " servant " or " worshiper of YHWH, the Lord." This name comes in the Tanach several times before, but there is no indication that the prophet would be identical to other carriers that name.

Dating

There are three variants for dating, which can not be proved all:

• Biblical exegesis has the support of the first book of Kings. There is presented in Chapter 18 EU Obadiah as a subject of King Ahab, the king in the Phoenician wife Jezebel has a determined opponent of anything. Another main character, has to do with the Obadiah, the prophet Elijah who was to bring the people of God by entrusting it back to the right path of faith. Thus, the date falls on the time of King Ahab between about 875 to about 852 BC

• A historical-critical variant suggests the capture of Jerusalem in verse 11 EU at the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, in 586 BC Then the book would be correspondingly after, ie believed to have originated in the Babylonian exile.

• Another variant interprets the verse as a historical and critical to the conquest of Jerusalem by Arabs and Philistines at the time of Jehoram ( 851-845 BC). This is suggested that Obadiah just conquest and plunder mentioned, but neither deportation nor destruction of the Temple. Also the book shows parallels to the prophecies about Edom in Amos and Jeremiah.

Content

The book is not divided due to its brevity into chapters, only in verse, as are common since the early modern period:

Obadiah has literal matches to Jer 49 EU, which suggests a literary dependency. While most of the boom of Obadiah go out as the primary text, see, inter alia, A. Meinhold and J. Jeremias Obadiah as a continuation of Jeremiah.

Other professionals named Obadiah in the Bible

• A steward of King Ahab, who protected the Israelite prophets before Queen Jezebel (1 Kings 18 EU )
• A descendant of David ( 1 Chr 3,21 EU)
• A son Izrahiah and main clan from the tribe of Issachar ( 1 Chr 7.3 EU)
• A son of Azel from the tribe of Benjamin ( 1 Chr 8,38 EU)
• An officer of Gad in David's army ( 1 Chr 12,9 EU)
• The father Jischmajas, a prince of Zebulun ( 1 Chr 27,19 EU)
• A prince at the time of Jehoshaphat, who was sent by the king to teach along with the priests and the Levites the people ( 2 Chr 17.7 EU)
• A Levite, who is commissioned by King Josiah to oversee the building of the temple ( 2 Chr 34,12 EU)
• The son of Jehiel, a clan chief, who returned with Ezra from Babylon (Ezra 8.9 EU)
• One of the priests who signed under Nehemiah, to keep the law ( Neh 12,25 EU)
• A Levite, who served at the time of the high priest Jehoiakim in the Temple (Neh. 12.25 EU)