Obadiah is a twenty-one-verse vision against Edom; beyond the name in verse 1, the text gives no biography or explicit date. Its reference to foreigners plundering Jerusalem and Edom abusing Judean fugitives most naturally fits Babylon's destruction of the city in 586 BC, though some interpreters propose an earlier attack. The oracle addresses proud Edom but speaks hope to devastated Judah and Zion. It declares that violence against a "brother" nation will return upon the offender when the day of the LORD reaches every nation, while God restores his people and reigns from Zion. Read it with 2 Kings 25, Lamentations, Psalm 137, and Jeremiah 49.
Obadiah delivers the shortest prophetic book in the Old Testament — a concentrated indictment of Edom's pride and betrayal of Jacob, culminating in a vision of universal judgment and the restored kingdom of the LORD.