Standing behind this whole book is Genesis’s account of the twins Jacob and Esau, who are the forefathers of Israel and Edom. Obadiah 10-11 indicates that this kinship between the two nations exacerbates Edom’s sin. Obadiah 2, in saying that Edom will be “utterly despised,” echoes Genesis 25:34, which says that Esau despised his birthright. Edom is on the trajectory set for it by Esau, and the punishment for their sin will be linked with his sin.
Genesis 12:3 also stands behind this verse. Edom is cursed because it attacked Abraham’s seed, but in the end, Edom will be blessedly possessed by Yhwh in the person of the Davidic Messiah in fulfillment of the promise that all the families of the earth will be blessed in Abraham (Obad 19, 21).[1]
The dispossession of Edom and destruction of the nation without survivors (Obad. 8, 9, 10, 18, 19) was first prophesied by Balaam in Numbers 24:18-19.[2] Note that the dispossession and cutting off of Edom as a judgment happened in the past as a judgment (Obad, 8, 9, 10), but the possession of Edom by Yhwh in the new creation will be a blessing upon those converted Edomites living in the millennium and eternal state.
The restoration of Israel to the land after having been dispossessed is part of Deuteronomy’s prediction of the new covenant and its terms (Dt 30:3-5).[3]
Obadiah also evokes Joshua in that “the future repossession of the land” (Obad 19-20) is “a recapitulation of early Israel’s settlement in the land.”[4] The future Day of Yhwh against all the nations was foreshadowed by the conquest of the nations in Canaan.
As noted above, the reference to “saviors” in Obadiah 21 evokes the judges from the book of Judges who threw off Israel’s enemies.[5] Here these saviors rule Edom from Mount Zion, which indicates that Israel now rules over Edom rather than Edom threating Israel.[6] But this may also indicate God’s deliverance of Edom as it now ruled over by Yhwh.
[1] Rooker, “The Book of Obadiah,” in The Word and the World, 444.
[2] Raabe, AB, 32-33, 248-49; Schnittjer, OTUOT, 401.
[3] See Staurt, WBC, 420.
[4] Timmer, TOTC, 24; cf Raabe, AB, 272.
[5] Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets; Raabe 32, 272.
[6] Block, ZECOT, 102-3.