Day 243: Obadiah | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Hey Bible nerds, this is Dr. Manny Arango. Welcome to the Bible Department podcast powered by ARMA. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebibledepartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. Family, welcome to day 243. Today, we are tackling the book of Obadiah. That's right, the book of Obadiah. This is the shortest book of the Old Testament. Just 21 verses, all right? So no chapters even necessary. So if anyone ever tells you turn to Obadiah chapter blank, they're lying. All right, no chapters in the book of Obadiah, just verses, okay? So when we say verse 2 or verse 8, we just mean Obadiah verse 2 or Obadiah verse 8 because there's 21 chapters and in my NIV, literally Obadiah is just one page. It's literally just this page. This is all Obadiah. So good old Obadiah. This is one of the books that, you know, during election cycles, we always talk about these flyover states, you know, people who feel forgotten about, you know, people. And if you can win in these flyover states, you know, these are swing states. And so man, Obadiah is a flyover book, you know? People don't typically pay attention to Obadiah, but Obadiah's got some gold and we are going to mine that gold. And so if you've done the reading, if you read the book of Obadiah, everything that I'm going to say today on this episode is going to make total sense because you have context. If you haven't done the reading, stop the video, pause the audio, and go do the reading. It'll take you, I mean, no time. Like, I mean, it's just a simple, simple, simple book of the Old Testament. So let's dive into some context clues, then I'll try to give you as many nerdy nuggets as I can, and we'll leave off with the timeless truth. Okay, so context. The context here is the fall of Jerusalem, okay? So the fall of Jerusalem happens in 586 BC. This book is probably written a year after the fall of Jerusalem, so we can time the book of Obadiah at 585 BC. For so many of these books that are recounting the same events, it's almost like we keep going forward in history, and then we go backwards, forward, backwards, forwards, backwards, because we really want to study the prophets in chronological order. I'll try to keep them in chronological order as much as I can. And so the book of Obadiah is actually not spoken to or prophesied against the people of Israel, but one of their enemies. And this is really sad because this enemy is actually a brother nation, okay? So the context for the book of Obadiah is going to be 585 BC, the fall of Jerusalem, but the wider context of the book of Obadiah is the relationship between Israel and Edom, the Edomites, okay? So verse 1, the vision of Obadiah, this is what the Sovereign Lord says about Edom,

we heard a message from the Lord, an envoy was sent to the nations to say, rise, let us go against her for battle. See, I will make you small among the nations. You will be utterly despised. The part of your heart has deceived you. You who live in the clefts of the rocks, so Edomites, they lived up in the mountains. This would be present day Jordan, okay? And most people, you've actually seen Jordan, even if you don't know that you've seen Jordan. Petra is going to be, if you can Google Petra right now, it's absolutely beautiful, it's stunning, that's Jordan. And places like Petra and the rocks of Jordan appear in movies like Indiana Jones. So you're actually probably more familiar with it than you even realize. The part of your heart has deceived you. You who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, okay? They lived in the mountains. You who say to yourself, who can bring me down to the ground, though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord. Okay, why? Like, why is God mad at the Edomites? Well, let's actually talk about who the Edomites are. The Edomites are descendants of Esau, okay? Esau. Remember, I want you to remember Genesis chapter 25 verse 35, okay? Genesis chapter 25 verse 35 speaks of a prophecy about the brothers that are actually inside of Rebekah's womb. Here's what the Lord says, two nations are in your womb and two peoples from within you shall be divided. The one shall be stronger than the other. The older shall serve the younger, okay? So Esau, is the the progenitor of the Edomites. And the issue that Yahweh is gonna have with the Edomites is that when Nebuchadnezzar came to besiege Jerusalem and to make war on Israel, the Edomites ridiculed, mocked, and profited. So historically, here's exactly what happened, okay? The prophetic word that the Lord gives to Rebekah about the two babies in her womb comes true, okay? Not only in the sense that Jacob became the heir of Abraham, but for most of their history, okay, Israel and Judah were the stronger of the two nations, stronger than Edom. Edom, in fact, was a vassal state to Israel under David and Solomon and later to Judah under Jehoshaphat. This particular word against them, okay, the word that Obadiah delivers against the Edomites seems to be focusing on their part in Nebuchadnezzar's multiple invasions of Judah. Edom was actually offered parts of Judah's territory if they aided the invasion. They definitely gloated over the fall of Jerusalem. And there are even reports that they

captured Jewish refugees and handed them over to the Babylonians, okay? So Jacob and Esau, twin brothers. Jacob, obviously, is gonna have 12 sons, so they're gonna become the 12 tribes, and that's gonna become the nation of Israel, northern kingdom of Israel, southern kingdom of Judah. And Edom, Esau, is gonna be the progenitor of the Edomites. So two brothers, twin brothers, are gonna produce these two groups of people. So the Edomites are supposed to act towards Israel and Judah as if they are brothers, because their foreparents are brothers. But Edom, instead of acting with loyalty and love and care towards their brother, Israel and Judah, in the invasion of the Babylonians against the Israelites, well, against Judah and the Israelites, Edom helped, okay? Edom felt like, this is our day, okay? Finally, somebody's here to beat up all my older brother, Judah, and so I'm gonna benefit. And for this, God is going to judge the Edomites. And that is what the book of Obadiah is really about, okay? The judgment that is gonna be pronounced on the Edomites, even as refugees are trying to escape Jerusalem, okay? The Edomites are capturing them and bringing them to the Babylonians, okay? This is just, this is not how brothers are supposed to act towards each other, okay? It says this, verse 10, because of the violence against your brother Jacob, okay? So he's saying Jacob was multiple, multiple, multiple generations ago, but you're seeing, you know, people as a people group, you're supposed to see them as your brother. You're supposed to treat them as your brother, because your foreparent, Esau, was brothers with Jacob. Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame, you will be destroyed forever. On the day you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them. You should not gloat over your brother in the day of his misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast so much in the day of their trouble. You should not march through the gates of my people in the day of their disaster. And why, why were they marching to the gates on the day of the disaster? To, what's that word? To loot! Like, like, Nebuchadnezzar has destroyed Jerusalem, and they're like, yeah man, let's go down

there and see if we can find something. Like, look, like, that's just terrible. That's just trash. It's a trash way to act towards other people, okay? Especially your brother. So, really, people don't pay attention to Obadiah, but Obadiah is really about brotherhood, and we'll get into that when we get into our Thomas Truth. I want to give you just one more, just, I'm kind of tossing in Nerdy Nuggets today with our context clues since the book is so short, but I'll definitely give you what I think is a really, really helpful Nerdy Nugget, and that is how, one for one, okay, Jeremiah 49 compares to the book of Obadiah, okay? Verse 1 and verse 4, so Obadiah verse 1 and Jeremiah 49 verse 14 match up. Obadiah verse 2 and Jeremiah 49 verse 15 match up. Obadiah verse 3 and Jeremiah 49 verse 16 match up. Obadiah chapter 4 and the second half of Jeremiah 49 16 match up. Obadiah verse 5 and Jeremiah 49 verse 9 match-up, Obadiah chapter 6, sorry, Obadiah verse 6, and Jeremiah 49 verse 10 match-up, Obadiah verse 8, and Jeremiah 49 verse 7 match-up, and on and on. So this is what leads a lot of scholars to believe that Obadiah and Jeremiah actually both lived through the same event, which is the fall of Jerusalem, and have something to say about the Edomites who were not helpful during that stressful, just traumatic time in Israel's history. So that's why we're dating the book at around 585 BC, just a year after the exile. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere books are sold. Literally today I walked into a Barnes & Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes & Noble, or you can go to a Books A Million, or Amazon, or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of Scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is gonna be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. The next thing I want you

to see is that the Day of Yahweh is gonna be talked about, so the Day of the Lord. But there's gonna be a distinction here. For the Day of the Lord is about judgment, okay? And Israel and Edom are not gonna get judged the same. For Israel and Judah, they're going to get judged. They're gonna get taken off in exile, and it's actually gonna restore them. It's going to fix the problem. God is gonna punish them, and that punishment is gonna bring them to repentance, and they are going to change, and they're gonna come back into the land, and God's promises over them are gonna be fulfilled. Fulfilled in the Messiah, and fulfilled ultimately when the kingdom of God comes in its fullness on the earth. But for Edom, they're also gonna experience the Day of the Lord, but there will be no restoration. There will be nothing restorative about it. And if you think about it right now, there are no Edomites. Edomites are no more, okay? The people of Israel still exist. Jews still exist. You can't find an Edomite today if you tried. And so the Day of the Lord showed up for both groups, and just like Obadiah said, there would be restoration for one, which is Jacob, but not restoration for the other, which is Esau. Alright, I think those are like all the nerdy nuggets I really have. So let's get into our timeless truth. I actually want to go up here to verse 12. You should not gloat over your brother in the day of his misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast so much in the day of their trouble. Oh man, that should hit home for all of us. I can be real, like when something negative happens to another pastor or preacher, what do I think? How do I feel? Like in my heart, am I kind of like, well, that's great. Now I can get the book deal they would have gotten, or now I can get the opportunity they would have gotten. Or is my heart broken? Because if I'm gloating over my brother in the day of their misfortune, then really I've bought into a scarcity mindset. I believe that me and my friend Brian Bullock are competing for the same resources. But if I see him winning and I cheer him on, not just in my words, but in my heart, I cheer him on. Then what I'm actually saying is, man, I want my brother to win. So really, the book of Obadiah really is about jealousy and competition. You can be so jealous

and so competitive and so insecure, you begin to gloat over your brother in the day of their misfortune. You should not be wishing that anybody fails. It's easy to say, man, I'm not, for me, right, I'm a preacher. I'm not a singer. So I don't care when a singer fails or whatever, because it doesn't mean anything for me. But when another preacher fails, you know, am I thinking to myself, like, I'm also in the middle of church planting at the moment. Am I thinking to myself, yeah, man, if they fail, maybe their people will come to my church. Like, that's just a trash way to be thinking about life. That's it. competitive, jealous, insecure, scarcity mindset way to be thinking about life, then actually that's what's at the heart of the book of Obadiah. That's why no book of the Bible is dispensable. Every single book of the Bible is really, really, really important. And you could see the strife that existed between Esau and Jacob. Oh man, it carried on into their descendants because whatever walked in the father will run in the son or whatever walked in the father will run in the family. So we want to be really careful not to allow jealousy, competitiveness, unhealthy competitiveness, insecurity, scarcity mindset to occupy our heart. Because at the end of the day, that's going to get magnified in whoever we lead. We can't be territorial, jealous Christians. Like when our brothers and sisters in Christ are winning, we should be the first chain for them. We got a lot of people out here that just hate on other Christians. And it's very, very, very annoying to me personally. And I think it would be annoying to Obadiah and man, I want everybody to win. We believe in a God, not of scarcity, but of abundance. There's enough pie for everybody to have a slice and for everybody to win. Nobody needs to be nervous about anybody else. Nobody needs to gloat over their brother's misfortune. No one needs to be hoping that other people secretly, secretly hoping. And this isn't something that we say.

This is something that we have in our heart. It's like you secretly kind of want them to fail because you think that if they fail, you can collect the spoils. Well, that's the heart of the Edomites and that's timelessly true. That's not just true for Obadiah. That's not just true in 586 BC as the people of Judah are going through the most traumatic event of their life and the Edomites are then taking advantage. That's true today. And man, I don't want to build anything on the rubble of another person's failure. I don't want to do that. I know some people, you know, I just, I'm aware of certain moral failures that have happened. And then, you know, in green room, sometimes people will say to me, man, you should go plant a church in such and such place. Because you know, there was a big church there and that church just went under because somebody had a moral failure. And I'm just like, I'm not, I'm not going to collect the spoils of somebody else's failure and build the dream that God's given me on the rubble of somebody else's life. I'm not, I'm not building, you know, what God wants me to build on the leftovers of somebody else's failure. It's a terrible way to think about life and shame on you for saying that. You know what I mean? That's just a terrible way to try to maximize on another person's failure is just not a good way to go about life. And I don't think that's just true in the church space. I think that's true in life. I think people can be very crabs in a barrel mentality when it comes to competing so they can win at life, but you don't have to compete with anybody. You got to compete with yourself yesterday. You got to compete with yesterday's version of you.

That's the only person that you have to compete with and God has the ability to do incredible things through you. You don't have to build your dream on somebody else's failure. That's a petty, small minded way to live life. And that little nugget, that secret is found right here in the book of Obadiah. How do you treat your brother? How do you treat your sister? How do you treat your family? Not on the days when everything's good, but when they're in the middle of failure and they actually need to get bailed out. What do you do? What you do in those moments will actually say more about you than it does about them. It will reveal what kind of brother you are. All right, that's our timeless truth for the day. Tomorrow we got day 244. We are in the book of Haggai. We're in the Haggai is funny. It's like, hey guy, but Haggai anyway. We're in Haggai chapters one and two tomorrow. It's going to be amazing. I'll be right here, ready to walk through the book of Haggai with you. If you're on a streak, don't break it. I'm so proud of you. I'll see you right here tomorrow for the Bible department. Love you so much. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to thebibledepartment.com.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.