Obadiah 1:1

"The vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah concerning Edom: we have heard tidings from Jehovah, and an ambassador is sent among the nations, saying, Arise ye, and let us rise up against her in battle."

"The vision of Obadiah ..." This is the title of the prophecy.

"Thus saith the Lord Jehovah ..." This applies to the entire prophecy and need not be limited to the adjacent clause "concerning Edom," despite the principal part of the message being primarily for that nation.

"We have heard tidings from Jehovah .." Obadiah clearly identified his message as having originated not within himself but in the Lord God of Israel.

"An ambassador is sent among the nations ..." God's instrument of humbling a proud and sinful nation is usually that of other nations who were commissioned of God to rise up and destroy the offender. Thus, it was Assyria in the case of Israel, and Babylon in the case of Judah. In this case, a confederacy of nations will destroy Edom. Historically, this judgment did not all fall at once, but in a succession of defeats by the Nabateans, the Babylonians, by Israel itself, by the Maccabees, and, finally, by the Romans in the general destruction of A.D. 70, after which Edom disappeared from history as any kind of a separate entity.

The first nine verses of Obadiah echo many of the sentiments of Jeremiah 49:7-27, but the declaration of Thompson that "Both are using an earlier oracle against Edom,"[1] is groundless. (See the Introduction regarding this so-called "problem.") God was the author, both of the Book of Jeremiah and of the Book of Obadiah. It should not be thought strange that God had spoken against Edom by the mouth of more than one prophet!