Have you ever read an entire book of the Bible in one day? I have, today actually. But the book is only 21 verses. Today I would like to introduce you to the book of Obadiah. You may have read it before. If not, now's your chance. It's right here:
Obadiah 1 (The only chapter).
"And the Lord spoke by His servants the prophets, saying, “Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations (he has acted more wickedly than all the Amorites who were before him, and has also made Judah sin with his idols), therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab; I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. So I will forsake the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become victims of plunder to all their enemies, because they have done evil in My sight, and have provoked Me to anger since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.’” (NKJV)
Obadiah 1 (The only chapter).
1 The vision of Obadiah.
Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom
(We have heard a report from the Lord,
And a messenger has been sent among the nations, saying,
“Arise, and let us rise up against her for battle”):
(We have heard a report from the Lord,
And a messenger has been sent among the nations, saying,
“Arise, and let us rise up against her for battle”):
2 “Behold, I will make you small among the nations;
You shall be greatly despised.
3 The pride of your heart has deceived you,
You who dwell in the clefts of the rock,
Whose habitation is high;
You who say in your heart, ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’
4 Though you ascend as high as the eagle,
And though you set your nest among the stars,
From there I will bring you down,” says the Lord.
You shall be greatly despised.
3 The pride of your heart has deceived you,
You who dwell in the clefts of the rock,
Whose habitation is high;
You who say in your heart, ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’
4 Though you ascend as high as the eagle,
And though you set your nest among the stars,
From there I will bring you down,” says the Lord.
5 “If thieves had come to you,
If robbers by night—
Oh, how you will be cut off!—
Would they not have stolen till they had enough?
If grape-gatherers had come to you,
Would they not have left some gleanings?
If robbers by night—
Oh, how you will be cut off!—
Would they not have stolen till they had enough?
If grape-gatherers had come to you,
Would they not have left some gleanings?
6 “Oh, how Esau shall be searched out!
How his hidden treasures shall be sought after!
7 All the men in your confederacy
Shall force you to the border;
The men at peace with you
Shall deceive you and prevail against you.
Those who eat your bread shall lay a trap for you.
No one is aware of it.
How his hidden treasures shall be sought after!
7 All the men in your confederacy
Shall force you to the border;
The men at peace with you
Shall deceive you and prevail against you.
Those who eat your bread shall lay a trap for you.
No one is aware of it.
8 “Will I not in that day,” says the Lord,
“Even destroy the wise men from Edom,
And understanding from the mountains of Esau?
9 Then your mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed,
To the end that everyone from the mountains of Esau
May be cut off by slaughter.
“Even destroy the wise men from Edom,
And understanding from the mountains of Esau?
9 Then your mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed,
To the end that everyone from the mountains of Esau
May be cut off by slaughter.
10 “For violence against your brother Jacob,
Shame shall cover you,
And you shall be cut off forever.
11 In the day that you stood on the other side—
In the day that strangers carried captive his forces,
When foreigners entered his gates
And cast lots for Jerusalem—
Even you were as one of them.
12 “But you should not have gazed on the day of your brother
In the day of his captivity;
Nor should you have rejoiced over the children of Judah
In the day of their destruction;
Nor should you have spoken proudly
In the day of distress.
13 You should not have entered the gate of My people
In the day of their calamity.
Indeed, you should not have gazed on their affliction
In the day of their calamity,
Nor laid hands on their substance
In the day of their calamity.
14 You should not have stood at the crossroads
To cut off those among them who escaped;
Nor should you have delivered up those among them who remained
In the day of distress.
Shame shall cover you,
And you shall be cut off forever.
11 In the day that you stood on the other side—
In the day that strangers carried captive his forces,
When foreigners entered his gates
And cast lots for Jerusalem—
Even you were as one of them.
12 “But you should not have gazed on the day of your brother
In the day of his captivity;
Nor should you have rejoiced over the children of Judah
In the day of their destruction;
Nor should you have spoken proudly
In the day of distress.
13 You should not have entered the gate of My people
In the day of their calamity.
Indeed, you should not have gazed on their affliction
In the day of their calamity,
Nor laid hands on their substance
In the day of their calamity.
14 You should not have stood at the crossroads
To cut off those among them who escaped;
Nor should you have delivered up those among them who remained
In the day of distress.
15 “For the day of the Lord upon all the nations is near;
As you have done, it shall be done to you;
Your reprisal shall return upon your own head.
16 For as you drank on My holy mountain,
So shall all the nations drink continually;
Yes, they shall drink, and swallow,
And they shall be as though they had never been.
As you have done, it shall be done to you;
Your reprisal shall return upon your own head.
16 For as you drank on My holy mountain,
So shall all the nations drink continually;
Yes, they shall drink, and swallow,
And they shall be as though they had never been.
17 “But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance,
And there shall be holiness;
The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.
18 The house of Jacob shall be a fire,
And the house of Joseph a flame;
But the house of Esau shall be stubble;
They shall kindle them and devour them,
And no survivor shall remain of the house of Esau,”
For the Lord has spoken.
And there shall be holiness;
The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.
18 The house of Jacob shall be a fire,
And the house of Joseph a flame;
But the house of Esau shall be stubble;
They shall kindle them and devour them,
And no survivor shall remain of the house of Esau,”
For the Lord has spoken.
19 The South shall possess the mountains of Esau,
And the Lowland shall possess Philistia.
They shall possess the fields of Ephraim
And the fields of Samaria.
Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
20 And the captives of this host of the children of Israel
Shall possess the land of the Canaanites
As far as Zarephath.
The captives of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
Shall possess the cities of the South.
21
Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion
To judge the mountains of Esau,
And the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.
And the Lowland shall possess Philistia.
They shall possess the fields of Ephraim
And the fields of Samaria.
Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
20 And the captives of this host of the children of Israel
Shall possess the land of the Canaanites
As far as Zarephath.
The captives of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
Shall possess the cities of the South.
21
Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion
To judge the mountains of Esau,
And the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.
(NKJV)
Obadiah is an interesting, and to some, rather confusing book. Why is God so angry with the nation of Edom? What is so important about them? Well, to figure that out we need a little historical backdrop. You see, the year Obadiah was written was shortly after 586 B.C. The nation of Judah had just been taken over by the Babylonian empire. The reason? Well, Judah had had a number of kings over the years, and many of them were not good ones. The longest reigning one, King Manasseh, was one of the worst. In fact, 2 Kings 21:10-15 shows how God responded to his works.
"And the Lord spoke by His servants the prophets, saying, “Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations (he has acted more wickedly than all the Amorites who were before him, and has also made Judah sin with his idols), therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab; I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. So I will forsake the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become victims of plunder to all their enemies, because they have done evil in My sight, and have provoked Me to anger since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.’” (NKJV)
God had had it with Judah's behavior, and it was time they received their judgment. God had spent plenty of time trying to get the nation to repent, but they blew Him off. So He finally had to judge them. We see the results just a few chapters later, in 2 Kings 25. If you read it, you find that the Babylonians burned some of the most important structures (including God's temple), took Jerusalem's treasures, killed many men, and exiled most of the nation. The king (named Zedekiah) tried to escape with his army, but failed and had his sons killed before his eyes. Then he was blinded and shipped off to Babylon. Judah lost it's sovereignty as a nation, and the people lost what was important to them. So what does all this have to do with Obadiah, and the nation of Edom?
The answer lies in this. Edom was a nation born out of the family of Esau. Israel (and therefore Judah) was a nation born out the family of Jacob. Jacob and Esau were brothers, and they didn't get along too well. Neither did their descendants. In fact when Judah was going into exile, Edom made it worse. Instead of mourning for their relatives, they literally gloated. It gets worse. They shared in the looting of Judah's territory. They even set up roadblocks so that those trying to escape the exile were captured. If Judah wasn't already suffering enough, this certainly didn't help. And of course it was only an amplified disgrace when we consider the fact that these people were related. This is what God tells Obadiah to prophesy about. He pronounces His indictment and His judgment in one book. So what can we learn from Obadiah?
Two lessons stand out to me. The first one we learn from Edom. When disaster strikes, don't gloat. Do you ever feel inclined to gloat when someone you don't like or who even hurt you meets up with rough times? The temptation is natural, you shouldn't feel guilty for that. The problem lies in whether you give in to it. If you do, you aren't acting very mature, and you don't please God either. Look at Proverbs 24:17-18. "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, And do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; Lest the Lord see it, and it displease Him, And He turn away His wrath from him." (NKJV) It's easy to gloat, but it's not godly. Obadiah makes that pretty clear. Now does this mean you can't be happy if an evil plan is foiled? Of course not. It means that if your abrasive and rude neighbor nearly falls down his porch stairs you shouldn't be laughing to yourself and thinking how it serves him right. We've all done it. But if you find yourself doing it, you need to be quick to repent, not because of the punishment you might receive, but because that person is precious to God too, and he/she doesn't need the extra trouble.
The other thing we can learn is this. God does not stop looking out for His people. God was angry at Judah, sure enough, but He did not bail out on them. He disciplined them, but had every intention of bringing them back home, which He did, by the way. So even though their world fell apart, God still had a future for them. That didn't change. They just had to take a detour so He could put them back on the right track. Verses 17-21 tell us that Judah will bounce back, but Edom will not. Now keep in mind that Judah is basically a dump at the time that this book is written. And yet, God was faithful, and seventy years later the exile ended, and in the last century, the nation has become a country again. True, it still has problems and will continue to, but God will never leave His people. And He shows the same degree of faithfulness to us as Christians. Hebrews 13:5-6 puts a clear light on what reliance we may place on God.
"Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we may boldly say:
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear.
What can man do to me?” (NKJV)
No matter what happens, God does not abandon His people. 2 Timothy 2:13 puts it another way. "If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself." (NKJV)
So Obadiah does have a message for us, just as every book of the Bible does. God is truly amazing in what He tells us through seemingly confusing scriptures. His faithfulness does not change, He will always be with us. And that's because He loves us. God is good, and that will always be the case. Period.
(NKJV means New King James Version)
(Historical backdrop on Obadiah, (including date of writing) information The New Spirit Filled Life Bible, Edited by Jack W. Hayford et al. Copyright 2002 by Thomas Nelson)
