I’m beginning to think that these guys are the “minor prophets” because their books are so short and they just didn’t say or do a lot compared to the major prophets we read through first. In fact, this is apparently going to be the shortest book in the entire Tanakh.
Obadiah is a bit of a mystery. His eponymous book has references to events that occur centuries apart, and scholars argue over whether the book was written in the 9th or 6th century BCE. Respectively that would put it at the time of the Philistine and Arab invasion and conquest of Israel (note on today’s events – attacks on Israel from the Arab world are recorded going back for three thousand years now), or, the Babylonian invasion and conquest by Nebuchadnezzar.
A little more is known about Obadiah’s personal life, in that he was a convert to Judaism, and that he was renowned for having saved “the hundred prophets” from persecution by Jezebel. One would think that would be enough to date his existence and book, but apparently there’s more stuff that happens in a different era. One might even muse that the book was cobbled together from the writings of more than one person. An interesting side note, Obadiah seems to be one of the few prophets who not only merits recognition in Judaism and Christianity, but in Islam as well, where he was known as Dhu al-Kifl, “Possessor of the Portion” – though some dispute this and say that that prophet was Ezekiel.
- God’s not happy with the House of Esau, and is going to destroy it on behalf of the House of Jacob, down to the last man. Even those who didn’t actively do things against God’s will stood idly by and didn’t try to set things back on the straight and narrow path. So you’re all dead, dead to me.
Okay, that’s the book.