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who were in their land at the time (compare Joe 3:19 with Amo 1:11). Libnah also fell away from Judah at the same time (2Ki 8:22; 2Ch 21:10), and Philistines and Arabians penetrated victoriously into Judah. This expedition of the Philistines and (Petraean) Arabians against Jerusalem was not merely “a passing raid on the part of certain of the neighbouring nations who had been made tributary by Jehoshaphat (2Ch 17:11), and had rebelled in the time of Jehoram,” as Caspari says; but these hordes continued their ravages in the most cruel manner in Judah and Jerusalem. According to 2Ch 21:17, they burst into the land, forced their way into Jerusalem, plundered the royal palace, and carried away the children and wives of the king, so that only the youngest son, Jehoahaz or Ahaziah, was left behind. We also learn from Joe 3:5 that they took away gold, silver, and jewels from the temple; and from Joe 3:3, Joe 3:6, that they carried on the vilest trade with the men and women of Judah, and sold the captives to the Greeks, and that, as we see from Amo 1:6, Amo 1:9, through the medium of the Phoenicians and Edomites. This agrees perfectly with Oba 1:10-14. For, according to this passage also, the Edomites themselves were not the enemies who conquered Jerusalem and plundered its treasures, but simply accomplices, who rejoiced in the doings of the enemy (Oba 1:11.), held carousals with them upon the holy mountain Zion (Oba 1:16), and sought, partly by rapine and partly by slaying or capturing the fugitive Judaeans (Oba 1:14), to get as much gain as possible out of Judah's misfortune. We must therefore regard this event, as Hofmann and Delitzsch have done, as the occasion of Obadiah's prophecy, and that all the more, because the historical allusions which it contains can thereby be satisfactorily explained; whereas the other attempts at solving the difficulties, when we look at the thing more closely, prove to be either altogether untenable, or such as will not apply throughout.
Thus, for example, Ewald and Graf (on Jer 49:7.) have endeavoured to reconcile the fact that Jeremiah had read the first part of Obadiah as early as the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and had made use of it in his prophecy, with the opinion that Oba 1:10-16 (Ob.) refer to the Chaldean conquest and destruction of Jerusalem, by the hypothesis that the first part