Exploring Obadiah

Sermon 356 St. Martin’s 112 (Riverway) 7/21/24

We began a new sermon series in Riverway called Oddballs and Misfits which looks at some of the more obscure books of the Bible. This sermon is based on the shortest book in the Old Testament, Obadiah.

After that reading you might be asking yourself: What in the world got Obadiah so mad? He’s really got a bone to pick with the Edomites.

To set the scene it’s important for us to know that Obadiah has lived through the most traumatic part of Judah’s history. In 587 BC, the mighty Babylonians besieged Jerusalem, took it captive, and then destroyed the Temple. The most sacred site on earth; the place where God’s glory resided in the Holy of Holies had been desecrated by Nebuchadnezzar’s army.

For Obadiah, it would’ve felt like the world was coming to an end. Since 597, King Nebuchadnezzar had been deporting many of the leading citizens to Babylon in what would become known as “The Exile.”

As the psalmist recalls, “By the waters of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.”[i] And now, all was lost—the Temple was gone, and the city was in smoldering ruins.

This is Obadiah’s world—a world of political chaos; uncertain about what the future might hold for him and his people. But he has not forgotten that the Babylonians had some assistance in destroying his beloved city. It was none other than Judah’s neighbor, the Edomites, who lent the Babylonians a helping hand.

And so, for the rest of our time this morning, I’d like to look at this book section by section (at times verse-by-verse). I rarely preach like this, but you’ll likely never hear another sermon on Obadiah, so I want to make the most of it. And, just to give you a clue, there is a big surprise at the end. So here we go…

The Destruction of Edom The first section is about the judgment of Edom. In a vision, the prophet hears God talk about Edom’s coming destruction. Verse 3 says,

“The pride of your heart has deceived you,

    you who live in the clefts of the rocks

    and make your home on the heights,

you who say to yourself,

    ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’”

You see, the Kingdom of Edom lay to the east of the Holy Land, in modern-day Jordan. It’s a very similar terrain on that side of the Jordan River to Israel; both sides can be hilly and filled with deep ravines. Much like Jerusalem, the Edomite capital of Sela was naturally fortified on a high plateau, with only one access point for foreign armies to try to invade.

Obadiah knows this, but he says they have a false sense of security. Though they live in the clefts and made a home in the heights, the Lord of Hosts will bring them down.

The vision continues by saying in verse 7,

All your allies will force you to the border;

    your friends will deceive and overpower you;

those who eat your bread will set a trap for you,

    but you will not detect it.

Edom had a lot of friends. Their kingdom was right in the path of a major north-south trade route that connected the Arabian Peninsula to Syria and Mesopotamia. That meant strategic partnerships with other regional powers, and a steady income as traders paid tariffs and tolls along the road.

The town of Teman is mentioned in verse 9. In the book of Job, one of his friends named Eliphaz, who is supposedly wise, is said to come from Teman. People from the east went to Edom’s marketplaces, like in Teman, seeking tales of wisdom and lore.

But the prophet says, on the day of disaster, your friends are going to deceive you and you’re not going to have a clue. All those political games are going to lead to your ruin because they won’t fight with you. All those people who were intrigued with the stories you were selling in the marketplaces will flee.

So, not only are the Edomites prideful of their defenses around their capital city, but they’re also naïve to their allies' intentions.

The Wrongdoing of Edom But what exactly did Edom do wrong? We hear the harsh judgment before the actual accusation. We finally get to it in verse 10:

Because of the violence against your brother Jacob,

    you will be covered with shame;

    you will be destroyed forever.

 On the day you stood aloof

    while strangers carried off his wealth

and foreigners entered his gates

    and cast lots for Jerusalem,

    you were like one of them.

 You should not gloat over your brother

    in the day of his misfortune.

It is important for us to remember that these two kingdoms were related. Back in Genesis, we hear the story of twin brothers, Jacob and Esau. They wrestled in their mother’s womb, and God told her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated.”

Esau came out red (Hebrew: adom), and the land his descendants possessed was red in appearance (red rocks and soil) hence Edom. Jacob stole Esau’s birthright and blessing which laid the foundations for two brotherly kingdoms who acted like pestering, competitive siblings.

Obadiah’s complaint is that in their darkest hour, the Edomites were not brotherly. They stood aside as the Babylonians tore through Jerusalem, and then, they acted like one of them; pillaging the city along with the soldiers. If the Babylonians were mighty lions going in for the kill, the Edomites were more like hyenas, picking up the scraps on the heels of the real predator.

Obadiah should’ve quoted a passage of Deuteronomy that said, “Do not despise an Edomite, for the Edomites are related to you.”[ii] The Edomites apparently did not have an equivalent verse in their sacred scriptures. The prophet was going, “E tu, Brute? Of all people, you?”

He then says in verse 14:

You should not wait at the crossroads

    to cut down their fugitives,

nor hand over their survivors

    in the day of their trouble.

For those who could escape Jerusalem, many would’ve headed east in hopes of getting to the Jordan River Valley, but some Edomites had created roadblocks along the way, stopping the refugees and handing them over to the Babylonians. The situation has gone from bad to worse—Edom was an extension of Nebuchadnezzar’s merciless hand, and nowhere was safe.

Edom on the Day of the Lord But then Obadiah paints a picture of a future day, a day that many of the prophets called The Day of the Lord. On that day, the nations would come before the Lord, wrongs would be made right, moral debts would be settled, and those persecuted for following Yahweh would be justified, once and for all. It was not only a victory for God’s people, but for God himself. It would prove that he was faithful to all of his promises.

The prophet portrays two mountains. Mount Zion, which was presently ruined, will be renewed and flourish in God’s blessing on that day. Mount Esau—a figure of speech for Edom—will be stubble and burned away. And God’s people would be restored to their land and spread out to all the other kingdoms.

The vision ends:

Deliverers will go up on Mount Zion

    to govern the mountains of Esau.

    And the kingdom will be the Lord’s.[iii]

This is a glorious vision for a people who have been betrayed by their brother, ripped from their land, with no Temple and no sign of hope as they sat by the waters of Babylon in exile. Obadiah says: This vision is what you can hope for.

As promised, I’ve got a surprise for you, a dramatic twist in this story. Fast forward to just before the time of Jesus. The exiles returned centuries ago, Israel was an independent state, and they were out for revenge. While the Jews were away, the Edomites had moved further and further into Israel’s land. One of the Jewish kings reconquered those lands and forced the Edomites (now known as Idumeans) to convert to Judaism.

That decision unwittingly paved the way for Herod the Great years later to take the throne. And would you know it, Herod was half-Idumean; he was an Edomite who claimed to be King of the Jews!

If you were a Jew in Jesus’ time, you would’ve said that Obadiah’s vision was not only wrong but had utterly backfired. “We were supposed to rule on Mount Esau, not one of Esau’s descendants rule on Mount Zion! How could this outsider govern God’s people?”

But we all know what happens. By the end of the Gospels, as Jesus is hoisted onto that Roman cross and a sign above him reads, “King of the Jews,” we realize this is not a defeat for God’s plan, but rather, this is the moment that the King of the Jews is enthroned. It was Jesus, the true Israelite, who was not only king of Israel but king of the world.

It is in apparent loss, in desolation, and humiliation that the Kingdom of God breaks through. One, single deliverer has gone up to Mount Zion, and his kingdom is the Lord’s and will rule all in all.

For us today, I am reminded of how big God’s story is. The moment we find ourselves in—however stressful, busy, lonely, you name it—when it comes to our personal lives or the life of this community or country—God is bigger than we could imagine. And his plan for our lives cannot be fully comprehended in this moment, those plans must only be entrusted to him.

Obadiah pointed to a future that he could not fully see. He could glimpse a bright morning star in the distance, ever so faintly amid the darkness and chaos of his day and time. Little did he know that glimmer of hope was the Dayspring from on High, Jesus the Deliverer, the Messiah, the bright morning star from the right hand of God.

What Obadiah saw faintly; we can see clearly with the eyes of faith. May we put our hope in Jesus, the light of the world and our lives, now and until the glorious Day of the Lord.

[i] 137:1, NIV

[ii] Deut 23:7, NIV

[iii] V. 21, NIV

Photo by Melina Kiefer on Unsplash