AN
EXPOSITION,
W I T H P R A C T I C A L O B S E R V A T I O N
S,
OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
O
B A D I A H
THIS
is the shortest of all the books of the Old Testament, the least of those
tribes, and yet is not to be passed by, or thought meanly of, for this penny
has Cæsar's image and superscription upon it; it is stamped with a divine
authority. There may appear much of God in a short sermon, in a little book;
and much good may be done by it, multum in parvo--much in a little. Mr.
Norris says, "If angels were to write books, we should have few
folios." That may be very precious which is not voluminous. This book is
entitled, The Vision of Obadiah. Who this Obadiah was does not appear
from any other scripture. Some of the ancients imagined him to be the same
with that Obadiah that was steward to Ahab's household (1 Kings xviii. 3);
and, if so, he that hid and fed the prophets had indeed a prophet's reward,
when he was himself made a prophet. But that is a conjecture which has no
ground. This Obadiah, it is probable, was of a later date, some think
contemporary with Hosea, Joel, and Amos; others think he lived about the time
of the destruction of Jerusalem, when the children of Edom so barbarously
triumphed in that destruction. However, what he wrote was what he saw; it is
his vision. Probably there was much more which he was divinely inspired
to speak, but this is all he was inspired to write; and all he writes is
concerning Edom. It is a foolish fancy of some of the Jews that because he
prophesies only concerning Edom he was himself an Edomite by birth, but a
proselyte to the Jewish religion. Other prophets prophesied against Edom, and
some of them seem to have borrowed from him in their predictions against Edom,
as Jer. xlix. 7, &c.; Ezek. xxv. 12, &c. Out of the mouth of these two
or three witnesses every word will be established.
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