The rendering chel=trench, or fortification, which some adopt, is out of the question. The LXX. have τῆς μετοικεσίας ἡ ἀρχὴ, but whether ἀρχὴ = power, or beginning, with allusion to the first dispersion of exiles, cannot be determined. Another difficulty arises with respect to the words that of the Canaanites-asher Khenaanim (literally, which Canaanites). To make it an object, as in our version, the particle eth is wanted, and Ewald, instead of asher, reads eth-ari= the cities of. That some change has taken place in the text appears from the LXX., who have yn, the land (Heb., erets). Keil, keeping the present reading, renders," And the captives of this army of the sons of Israel (will take possession) of what Canaanites there are as far as Zarephath..." Pusey: "And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel which are among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath," making it joint subject with "the captives of Jerusalem" to "shall possess the cities of the south," which is in accordance with the construction of the LXX. and the Syriac. But the absence of the preposition be before Khenaanim seems to make this rendering impossible. The Hebrew as it stands can only mean "which are Canaanites." The choice lies between Ewald's emendation of the text and Keil's interpretation. The Jews understand by Zarephath the country of France. The last clause is better in the text than in the margin: "The exiles from Jerusalem who are in Sepharad shall take possession of the cities of the south.' The only difficulty is in the name Sepharad, a place never mentioned elsewhere, and which has not yet been satisfactorily identified. The various conjectures have been 1. That of the LXX., ews 'Eppalà, followed by the Arabic translation, probably from reading Sepharath. Jerome, in his Commentary on Obadiah, appears to have understood this reading as pointing to the Hebrew Phrath, since he translates, transmigratio Jerusalem usque Euphratem. 2. The reading of the Vulg., quæ in Bosphoro est, was derived by Jerome from a Jewish instructor, who treated the particle in Bisparad as part of the name, and rejected the final d altogether. 3. The Targum Jonathan, the Peshito-Syriac, and from them the modern Jews, interpret Sepharad as Spain (Ispamia or Ispania); hence Sephardim, a name for the Spanish Jews. 4. Sipphara in Mesopotamia. But this is more probably identified with Sepharvaim. 5. Sardis, from a supposed connection with CPaRaD, or Cparda, mentioned in the great arrow-headed inscription of Nakshi Rustam, in a list of names of tribes between Cappadocia and Ionia, which De Sacy identified with Sepharad, and Lassen with Sardis. 6. Sparta. Some relations there were between the Jews after the captivity and the Lacedæmonians (see 1 Macc. xii. 2, seqq., xiv. 16, seqq., xv. 23). Possibly there was a colony of the exiles in Sparta. 7. Ewald conjectures Sepharam instead of Sepharad, and finds the place in Shefa Amar, a well-known place a few miles south-east of Acco. The general drift of the passage seems to require some place not far distant from, and in the direction of, Zarephath. The only serious objection to this conjecture is the fact that Shefa Amar was within the boundaries of Palestine, and therefore those who had taken refuge there would not strictly be exiles. But it is distinctly stated that these were of Jerusalem," and they might well be called refugees, since they had had to go so far north to find an asylum. 66 (21) Saviours.-Comp. Judges iii. 9, 15; Neh. ix. 27. The Jewish interpreters understand by "saviours" men like the judges of old, Gideon, Barak, &c., who will chastise the Christians and subdue them. The Mount of Esau is of course, according to this interpretation, Rome. And the kingdom shall be the Lord's.See the reference in margin to Zechariah, who gives this anticipation of the pure form of the theocracy in its wider extent. But here, too, the prophetic look over the world seems to extend far beyond Judah and the fortunes of the Jewish race, and as the vision widens Zion and Edom both retire from sight; both are comprehended in the one Divine kingdom, and God is all in all. For the bearing of this conclusion to the prophecy on its date, see Excursus. EXCURSUS ON NOTES то OBADIAH. ON THE DATE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE BOOK. OBADIAH has been placed as early as the beginning of the ninth century, antecedent to the prophet Joel, and by one commentator at least-Eichorn-has been brought down as late as the first century before Christ. The data for determining the problem are: 1. The identification of the siege and capture of Jerusalem, mentioned in verse 11, with some one known historical event. 2. The recurrence, in an altered order and form, of certain verses of this prophecy in Jer. xlix. 3. A comparison of Obadiah with other oracles concerning Edom. 1. There is no question that verse 11 records a conquest of Jerusalem, which had already taken place. It is true that in verses 13, 14 the margin," do not behold," is the correct translation, and not "thou shouldest not" of the Authorised Version. But the tone of this warning makes it evident that the particular practices referred to are enumerated as being such as had been employed by Edom before, such as were customary whenever occasion offered. Verse 11-" In the day of thy standing over against, in the day of taking away strangers his forces (or substance), and foreigners entered his gates, and over Jerusalem cast lots, thou too as one of them"-is too general and indefinite to enable us to identify it with certainty with any one of the seven captures of Jerusalem mentioned in the Old Testament. But some of these we can eliminate. The capture by the Egyptian King Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam is excluded by the fact that at that time Edom was subject to Judah. Obadiah cannot be referring to the civil war between Joash and Amaziah, because he expressly calls the enemy that captured Jerusalem foreigners. There remain (1) The capture by the Philistines and Arabians in the reign of Jehoram (related in 2 Chron. xxi. 16, 17); (2) by the Chaldæans in the reign of Jehoiakim (2 Kings xxiv. 1, seqq.; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6, 7); (3) the second capture by Nebuchadnezzar when Jehoiachin was taken prisoner (2 Kings xxiv. 10, seqq.; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10); and (4) the final and decisive siege, which ended in the destruction of the city and general captivity. There is much to favour the view that our prophet refers to the first of these. We know that Edom revolted from Judah during Jehoram's reign, and though that monarch was able partially to recover his authority, it was never completely recovered. The Arabians mentioned as allied with the Philistines in a raid on his territories may have included the Petræan Arabs. From the account in Chronicles we learn that these marauders burst into the land, forced their way into Jerusalem, plundered the royal palace, and carried away the children and wives of the king, so that only the youngest son was left behind. If, as seems probable from the remarkable coincidence of language between this passage and Obadiah 10-17, Joel iii. 3, 5, 6, they refer to the same events, numbers of the people also were made prisoners, and sold as slaves. On the other hand, the state of things indicated in Obadiah seems to demand a captivity on a much larger scale than even this. The concluding part of the chapter seems to refer to a catastrophe far more wide in its extent than the expedition in Jehoram's reign. The re-settlement of the captives in their old possessions, and overflow of them into the conquered territory of Edom, points to a previous dispersion on a grand scale. Altogether, it must be left as impossible to decide from this datum to which of the captures of Jerusalem the prophet refers. That he had some comparatively recent event in his mind is clear, not only from the general tone of the language, but also from the probable inference, from verse 20, that he was himself among the captives. (See Note.) At the same time, from verses 11-13 we see that he wrote with the fear of a repetition of Edom's well-known practices in his mind. On the whole, from this doubtful historical reference alone, we incline to the opinion that our prophet's is a voice raised during the early years of the exile, when the memory of Edom's unbrotherly alliance with the Chaldæans was still strong and bitter, although the sight of them enjoying the fruits of their conduct in the lands of Judah had not destroyed prophetic hope, nor weakened the belief, which older oracles had pronounced, of a swift and terrible vengeance on this hated people. 2. If the relation between Jeremiah and Obadiah could be satisfactorily ascertained, the question of the date of the latter would be settled. The forty-ninth chapter of Jeremiah contains an oracle about Edom, in which the earlier part of Obadiah's prophecy is embodied. Out of the sixteen verses of which it is composed, four are identical in language with verses from Obadiah (Jer. xlix. 9, 14, 15, 16 correspond with Obad. verses 5, 1, 2, 3). A fifth embodies the substance of a verse (comp. Jer. xlix. 10 with Obad. 6). In two other verses respectively of the two prophets the same thought appears (Jer. xlix. 7 and Obad. 8), while the image in chap. xlix. 12 is that of Obad. 16. Add to this that the title which Jeremiah prefixes to his oracle -" concerning Edom, thus saith the Lord of hosts appears in a slightly changed form in Obadiah, after the proper heading " vision of Obadiah "-in such a way as to confuse the construction (see Note). Now, of these two passages Obadiah's has undoubtedly the appearance of being the original in form. It is almost inconceivable that a copyist should have culled here and there a sentence from a longer work, and woven them into a connected and harmonious whole like Obad. 1-6. It was also so much in Jeremiah's manner to incorporate and use, for his own immediate purpose, oracles about foreign nations which he found in older works (comp. Jer. xlviii. passim, with Isa. xiv., xv., xvi. ; Jer. xlix. 1-6 with Amos i. 13, 15; Jer. 1. with Isa. xii., &c.) that we should suspect him to be the borrower in this instance. The passage in Obadiah, moreover, reads as the more ancient of the two. It is the more concise and abrupt, is rugged in comparison, and less polished, as we should expect in an older copy, has OBADIAH. an irregular grammatical form where Jeremiah substitutes a regular (shalluach, Jer. xlix. 14, for Obadiah's shullach, verse 1), does not attempt an easy flow of verse or careful parallelism, and preserves an image which is among the boldest of even Hebrew poetry, and which is omitted in Jeremiah, though the omission makes the construction faulty, "Though thou exalt as the eagle, and among stars set thy nest, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord." Jeremiah omits the italicised words, and so loses the direct antecedent to "thence." These considerations lead to the conclusion that Obadiah did not copy from Jeremiah. The first part of the prophecy bearing his name must have been in existence before the date of Jeremiah's forty-ninth chapter; but it does not follow that the whole, as it now exists, had been written at that time. A later hand may have incorporated the earlier vision of Obadiah with fresh matter of his own; and there are indications that such was the case, besides the fact that the verses identical with those of Jeremiah are confined to the first portion of the book, viz., verses 1-9. There is a correspondence between the latter parts and Joel-not so close as that of the first part and Jeremiah, not extending to whole verses, but confined to phrases and expressions--but still a correspondence so close and striking, especially considering the very small limits in which the similarities occur, as to warrant the conclu sion of a dependence of one writer on the other. The originality of Joel will hardly be disputed. We are therefore brought to infer that the writer who left the Book of Obadiah in its present shape took the ancient oracle against Edom, of which Jeremiah also availed himself, for the first half of his work, and in what he added was indebted greatly to Joel. This hypothesis accepted brings the composition of the work as we have it within the exile period, but leaves it quite uncertain to what date in that period to assign it. The concluding words of the prophecy are an echo of Zech. xiv. 9 (see Note), or at least belong to the same period. But the question remains whether Obadiah was the name of this later editor, or whether it was the name of the older seer whose oracle he incorporated. The inscription leads to the second of these two conclusions. There is no reason to doubt that the first title, "vision of Obadiah," belongs to the older part; the second heading, "Thus saith," &c., which as it stands does not harmonise with the first, may have been inserted by some copyist to bring this oracle into similarity with the circle of oracles against foreign nations in Jeremiah, where the recognised introduction is of this form. 3. The time to which we have assigned our prophecy brings it within the circle of well-known prophecies about Edom: viz., Ezek. xxv. 12-14, xxxv. 1-15; Isa. xxxiv., lxiii. 1-6; Ps. cxxxvii. 7-9; Lam. iv. 21, 22; Ezek. xxxii. 29, xxxvi. 5. It has been noticed that the tone of Obadiah is not so fierce and vindictive as these. It is, however, quite in accordance with their general feeling. We should like to know more of this writer, who, commissioned with only one short message against one of Israel's foes, delivered it with such incisive force, yet such moderation and self-restraint. We only know that, like him whose words he adapted to his own use, he too deserves the name "servant of Jehovah." |