Tag: Obadiah

Biblical Prophecy

Carl Pollard

Prophecy is one of the boldest claims any religious text can make: that a transcendent God reveals specific future events, sometimes centuries or millennia in advance, through human spokesmen. The Bible contains roughly 2,500 prophecies, of which most have already been fulfilled with 100 percent accuracy! The remaining prophecy are yet to come with the return of Christ. This track record is unique among world religions and texts. 

Deuteronomy 18:21–22 gives us the standard: “If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken.” A single verifiable failure disqualifies a prophet. By this biblical standard,  Muhammad, Joseph Smith, Nostradamus, and every modern “psychic” are eliminated. No biblical prophet ever fails when the prophecy is testable.

Biblical prophecy is extremely detailed, not the vague horoscope-style language used by many today. For example: 

  1. Micah 5:2 (700 BC) names Bethlehem Ephrathah as the Messiah’s birthplace, out of hundreds of Judean villages.
  2. Isaiah 44:28–45:1 (700 BC) names Cyrus as the Persian king who would release the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem, 150 years before Cyrus was born.
  3. Psalm 22 (1000 BC) describes crucifixion, nails in hands and feet, garments divided by lots, centuries before Rome invented the practice.
  4. Zechariah 11:12–13 foretells the betrayal price of thirty pieces of silver, cast to the potter in the temple, fulfilled to the letter in Judas Iscariot (Matthew 27:3–10).

Mathematician Peter Stoner calculated the odds of one man fulfilling just eight messianic prophecies at 1 in 10¹⁷ (one followed by seventeen zeros). For forty-eight prophecies, the probability drops to 1 in 10¹⁵⁷ a number so large that if you filled the state of Texas two feet deep with silver dollars, marked one, and asked a blindfolded person to pick it on the first try, those are the odds.

Skeptics dismiss prophecy as “after-the-fact interpretation” or “self-fulfilling.” Yet many predictions (the fall of Tyre in Ezekiel 26; the precise sequence of empires in Daniel 2 and 7; the desolation of Edom in Obadiah, Jeremiah 49) were fulfilled centuries later in ways no human could manipulate.

Biblical prophecy is not fortune-telling; it is history written in advance by the only Being who stands outside time. Its perfect record remains the strongest external evidence that the Bible is exactly what it claims to be: the word of the living God! 

Obadiah

What do you know about Obadiah? Here’s a book that is completely focused on the destruction of a Semitic people who fought God’s people for centuries. How does God feel about the mistreatment of His people and of our brethren? It’s a big deal.

The Judgment Of Esau (1:1-21)

Neal Pollard

OBADIAH 

The Judgment Of Esau (1:1-21)

Neal Pollard

There are so many ways that Obadiah is unique among the Minor Prophets. The most obvious is the length of the book, a single chapter in our English Bibles and less verses than there were letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Only Philemon, 2 John, and 3 John are shorter Bible books, and every other Old Testament book dwarfs it for length.

Another uniqueness is the subject of the book, the Edomites. These are the descendants of Esau, an emphasis that cannot be missed as Obadiah calls his name seven times in this brief book. Genesis 25 provides the background of Esau and the seeds of antagonism between him and Jacob. The rotten fruit of that schism had come to harvest repeatedly, and Edom’s contempt and mistreatment of his “brother,” Jacob (Israel)(10) is at the heart of this condemning prophecy. No other book is singularly devoted to the judgment of Edom. 

Yet another uniqueness is the total lack of a timeframe for the book. One way to try and date it is by noting times when God’s chosen were being punished or oppressed and Edom was antagonistic to them. B.C. Cresson identifies six such times, the revolt of Absalom, the invasion of Shishak, the invasion of Philistia and Arabia, the invasion of Israel, the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar in 597 B.C., and the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar in 587 B.C.  (Smith and Page, NAC, 171). With them, I am convinced that the last of these events is most likely. Key to an educated guess for the date is verses 11-14, written in past tense and fitting of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Between that event and Malachi’s 5th century prophecy pointing to the demise of Edom in past tense (Mal. 1:2-5), we can be fairly safe in deducing Obadiah as written in the sixth century B.C. There is also a compelling case to be made for a much earlier date (see Walter Baker in The Bible Knowledge Commentary, 1454). Whenever it was written, it exposes a pattern of oppression by Edom against God’s Old Testament elect.

What is the book of Obadiah about? We might label it a book about pride and promises. It can be divided as a book of humbling for Edom and hope for Israel. It is a book about justice and mercy. However you outline it, the book is a study in contrasts. Obadiah labels his contents a “vision” (1). The body of the book is written in poetic form, a series of oracles. 

The problem of Edom’s ego (3-9). The Edomites gloried in themselves. It is remarkable to read how everything that they placed their confidence in would be taken away from them or destroyed. They took pride in their high position, but God would bring them down (3-4). They took pride in their possessions, but those would be ransacked (5-6). They took pride in their political partnerships, but those would be untrustworthy (7). They took pride in their prudence, but their wise men would be destroyed (8). They took pride in their power, but their mighty men would be dismayed (9). Edom rested their hope on themselves and earthly helps, all of which would be futile. 

The problem of Edom’s evil (10-14). Why would God deal this way with Edom? Remarkably, the heart of their problem was their sin against their brother. How does God feel about mistreatment and unloving actions against brethren? Read 1 John 3-4. One cannot hate his brother and be right with God.

Edom did not help God’s people when they were in trouble (10-11). Edom rejoiced when they were hurting (12). Edom even participated in hurting their downtrodden brethren (13-14). These are three stages of the same spiritual cancer–indifference, malice, and wrongdoing. 

The problem of Edom’s end (15-16). God would not let this stand! Edom would reap what they had sown (15). Others would do to them what they had done to Israel. But, as we will see, God’s chosen would survive their calamity. Edom would not! 

The promise of Israel’s exaltation (17-21). In the future, “the house of Jacob will possess their possessions” (17). Obadiah shares God’s message of restoration. Israel would rise and Esau would be razed (18). God’s people would possess and Edom would be possessed (19). Israel’s exiles would return, but Edom’s descendants would be judged (20-21). Mount Zion and Mount Esau would experience opposite fates. James Smith gives a compelling chart to show the fulfillment of Obadiah’s promises in this last paragraph, promises that would be fulfilled in the New Testament:

James Smith, Old Testament Survey Series (p. 59)

Who Is The “Troubler Of Israel”?

Neal Pollard

Ahab was the most wicked king in Israel’s history (1 Kings 16:30). To top it off, he was married to perhaps the most immoral woman revealed to us during the time of the divided kingdom in the Old Testament. Her name, Jezebel, is still somewhat infamous today. She destroyed the prophets of the Lord (1 Kings 18:4). The prophets who survived feared for their lives because of Ahab (18:9). Instead, Jezebel kept a stable of false prophets, 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah (18:19). Read this section of 1 Kings and the first nine chapters of 2 Kings to get the full flavor of who this notorious couple was.

How ironic that when Elijah appears to Ahab before the prophet’s infamous confrontation with the false prophets on Mount Carmel, Ahab’s first words to him were, “Is this you, you troubler of Israel?” (18:17). There was controversy, division, problems, and trouble in the land, but Ahab’s narrative was distorted. Ahab was like a reckless drunk driver weaving in and out of traffic and blaming a law-abiding pedestrian for being in his way on the sidewalk. Elijah was not the troubler of Israel for daring to oppose the false ways of Ahab and Jezebel. He was doing exactly what God wanted him to do!

In our present, lawless age, there are so many “prophets” who come along with a message appealing to right ideas like peace, grace, unity, and love. Many of them package themselves in the garments of relevance, using our culture as their props and stage. The causes célèbre which our age reveres, some of which are diametrically opposed to the doctrine, ethics, and morality outlined in Scripture, are pushed at God’s people—who are shamed and made to feel unrighteous if they dare protest what is said. In some circles, it is asserted that anyone teaching that the Bible is authoritative, contains a pattern, and is God’s objective truth for all times, is Pharisaical, consumed with self-righteousness, hateful, mean-spirited, and divisive. In short, that they are “troublers of Israel.”

As a quick side-note, there are some who do press their personal proclivities, traditions, and convictions as divine truth. This is as accursed a thing as seeking to nullify what God has bound in heaven (cf. Mat. 16:19; Rev. 22:18-19). Such folks manufacture trouble rather than trouble people by faithfully sharing God’s Word. These occupy unenviable ground, in view of the end of all things.

Yet, anyone who conscientiously tries to follow God’s blueprint for how to share His truth (Eph. 4:15; 2 Tim. 2:24-26; Col. 4:6), who takes care to handle Scripture accurately (2 Tim. 2:15), is going to invariably encounter the Ahabs, Jezebels, Baalites, and Asherahists. Teach the singular, undenominational nature of the church (Eph. 4:4), the role of women in the church (1 Tim. 2:9-12), the essentiality of baptism in God’s saving plan (Acts 2:38), God’s plan for marriage and sexuality (Mat. 19:1-9; Heb. 13:4; Rom. 1:26-27), and the like, and it will come. The Ahabs will label you the troublemaker and the source of the problem.

In what may sound dark and grim, Paul warns Timothy that difficult times will come (2 Tim. 3:1). He speaks of men immoral in nature and inaccurate in message who succeed with the weak and impulsive (3:6), who themselves are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (3:7), who in fact “oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith” (3:8). Ultimately, they will not carry the day (3:9). But they will always have their eager followers who “accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths” (4:3-4).

Suppress the victim mentality if you are trying to be an Elijah in this Ahab society. On the job, at home, in the community, within the religious community at large, and even at times within the church, “preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2). Do it with great patience and instruction, as Paul counsels. Don’t be a troubler in God’s eyes, but know that you will be seen as one in the eyes of some in this world. Keeping company with Elijah is not a bad thing.

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