1 Obadiah does not indicate what time he lived, but his prophecy refers to the time of Babylonian imprisonment, for he comforts the people of Judah to come again to Zion.
002 And his prophecy is especially against Edom, or Esau, which had a peculiar everlasting hatred and envy against the people of Israel and Judah; as it is wont to be, when friends are divided against one another, and especially when brethren are divided against one another in hatred and enmity, there is enmity beyond measure.
3 Thus the Edomites were exceedingly hostile to the Jewish people, and had no greater joy than that they should see the prison of the Jews, and praised and mocked them in their mourning and misery. As almost all prophets rebuke the Edomites for such ugly wickedness, so also the 137th Psalm, v. 7, complains about them, saying: "Lord, remember the Edomites in the day of Jerusalem, when they said: Pure abe, pure abe, even to their ground.
4) Because such things are painful to the extent that the miserable and afflicted (who should be comforted) 1) are first of all comforted to their jam.
1) In the original: the.
The people mock, laugh, defy and praise, so that the faith in God suffers a great, strong challenge, and is violently provoked to despair and unbelief: Here God sets up a prophet against such vexatious scoffers and tempters, and comforts the afflicted, and strengthens their faith with reproof and rebuke against such hostile Edomites, that is, scoffers of the wretched, and with promise and assurance of future help and salvation. And is indeed a necessary comfort and a useful Obadiah in such an accident.
5 At the end he prophesies of Christ's kingdom, which shall not be at Jerusalem only, but everywhere. For he mixes all nations together, as Ephraim, Benjamin, Galaad, Philistines, Cananites, Zarpath, which cannot be understood of the temporal kingdom of Israel, since such tribes and people had to be distinguished in the land, according to the law of Moses.
6 But that the Jews here interpret Zarpath France, and Sepharad Hispania, I leave aside, and hold nothing of it, but let Zarpath remain the city near Zidon, and Sepharad a city or country in Assyria, since they were captives at Jerusalem, as the text clearly says [v. 20.], "And the captives Jerusalem, which are at Sepharad." But let each one think what he will.
*) This preface is found in Walch, in the Leipzig edition, vol. XII, p. 44 and in the Erlanger, vol. 63, p. 79.