Obadiah’s prophesies constitute the shortest book of the Bible: a single chapter with twenty-one verses. Nothing is known about the prophet himself. He tells us neither his father’s name nor the city of his birth. The best scholars can do is place him sometime after the fall of Judah to the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. This date rests on the polemical nature of his prophecy aimed at the Edomites. The Edomites sided with Babylonia and against Judah, and collaborated with the former, attacking refugees and occupying the Negev. Obadiah speaks of God’s wrath against the Edomites, promising to crush them and turn their possessions over to the House of Jacob.
