The Message Remix (270 page)

INTRODUCTIONOBADIAH

 

It takes the entire Bible
to read any part of the Bible. Even the brief walk-on appearance of Obadiah has its place. No one, whether in or out of the Bible, is without significance.
It was Obadiah’s assignment to give voice to God’s word of judgment against Edom.

Back in the early stages of the biblical narrative, we are told the story of the twins Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25-36). They came out of the womb fighting. Jacob was ancestor to the people of Israel, Esau ancestor to the people of Edom. The two neighboring peoples, Israel mostly to the west of the Jordan River and Dead Sea and Edom to the southeast, never did get along. They had a long history of war and rivalry. When Israel was taken into exile—first the northern kingdom by the Assyrians in 721 B.C. and later the southern kingdom by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.—Edom stood across the fence and watched, glad to see her old relative get beat up.

At first reading, this brief but intense prophecy of Obadiah, targeted at Edom, is a broadside indictment of Edom’s cruel injustice to God’s chosen people. Edom is the villain and God’s covenant people the victim.

But the last line of the prophecy takes a giant step out of the centuries of hate and rivalry and invective. Israel, so often a victim of Edomite aggression through the centuries, is suddenly revealed to be saved from the injustices of the past and taking up a position of rule over their ancient enemies the Edomites. But instead of doing to others what had been done to them and continuing the cycle of violence that they had been caught in, they are presented as taking over the reins of government and administering God’s justice justly. They find themselves in a new context—God’s kingdom—and realize that they have a new vocation—to represent God’s rule. It is not much (one verse out of twenty-one!), but it is a glimmer (it is the final verse!).

On the Day of Judgment, dark retaliation and invective do not get the last word. Only the first rays of the light of justice appear here. But these rays will eventually add up to a kingdom of light, in which all nations will be judged justly from the eternal throne in heaven.

 

 

From:
All we know about Obadiah is that his name means “servant of God.” He wrote shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, and his prophecy of Edom’s destruction was fulfilled a generation or two later.

 

To:
It was bad enough that the Babylonians had raped, pillaged, and burnt their way across the Jews’ country and taken much of the population into exile. But while the Jews were defenseless, their neighbors in Edom had seized the chance not only to gloat but also to cross the border and take whatever they could get their hands on. Instead of sheltering refugees, Edom had sent them back to be enslaved or killed. The Jews taken captive to Babylon nursed this grudge, and it’s hard to know what they thought of Obadiah’s vision that someday, when they got their own back, they would repay Edom not with revenge but with generous justice.

 

Re:
About 586 B.C. Pythagoras, a Greek mathematician and philosopher, was born in 569 B.C. He founded a commune dedicated to obedience, simplicity, and study. When a person joined the group, he had to stay silent for five years before he could offer ideas. The Pythagoreans studied music, astronomy, and mathematics. They decisively proved a theorem about right triangles (a
²
+ b
²
= c
²
), although the Babylonians had known and used the idea for a thousand years. Today we call it the Pythagorean theorem.