Obadiah

• Shortly after the Babylonian capture of 586 BC. Held by Leslie C. Allen, The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah (1976), and by Paul R. Raabe, Obadiah, Anchor Bible (1996).
• The raid in the days of Jehoram. Held by E. B. Pusey (1860) and by Carl Friedrich Keil (1868), in their commentaries on the Minor Prophets named under Sources.
• A prophet of the time of Hosea and Amos. Held by Ephrem the Syrian in his Commentary on Obadiah, on 1:1, who calls him a contemporary of Hosea, Joel, Amos and Isaiah.

What the evidence does not settle: The book names no king and no empire, so the date rests on which recorded fall of Jerusalem best fits 1:11 to 14; the teaching of the book reads the same on either date.

• Jeremiah took up Obadiah's oracle. Held by E. B. Pusey (1860), by Carl Friedrich Keil (1868), and by Carl Paul Caspari, Der Prophet Obadja ausgelegt (1842).
• Both drew on an older word against Edom. Held by Leslie C. Allen, The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah (1976).
• The same words given to two prophets. Held by Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, on 1:1, who sends the reader to Jeremiah 49:14, where the same expressions are found.

What the evidence does not settle: No text outside the two books says which came first, and the order of the shared lines differs between them (1:5 and Jeremiah 49:9 reverse the thieves and the grape gatherers).

• The nation of Edom, judged in history. Held by Ephrem the Syrian in his Commentary on Obadiah, on 1:10 and 18.
• A type of the last enemies of God. Held by Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, on 1:4 and 21.
• Every enemy of the church. Held by Jerome in his Commentary on Obadiah, on 1:15, and by Augustine of Hippo, The City of God (426), book 18, chapter 31.

What the evidence does not settle: The day of the LORD at 1:15 widens the book from Edom to all the nations in one verse, so the text supports the historical sentence and the wider one; how far the name Edom itself is read as a type is a judgment of reading.

• Sardis in Asia Minor. Held by Paul R. Raabe, Obadiah, Anchor Bible (1996).
• Spain. Held by Ephrem the Syrian in his Commentary on Obadiah, on 1:20, who reads it as a province far from Judea.
• The Bosporus. Held by Jerome in his Commentary on Obadiah, on 1:20, from his Hebrew teacher.
• Unknown. Held by Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, on 1:20, who calls it a difficult word and lists the Bosporus, Spain and other guesses.

What the evidence does not settle: Sepharad occurs only at 1:20; the verse's point, that exiles return from far away, stands on any reading.

• Deliverers like the judges. Held by Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, on 1:21, who sets the word beside the saviours God raised up in Judges 3:9 and 15.
• Those who have been saved. Held by Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, on 1:21, who notes that several Hebrew manuscripts read mushaim, those saved, as the Greek Septuagint reads.
• Christ and those he sends. Held by John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, on 1:21, and by Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 1:21, who reads the deliverers as the preachers of the gospel.

What the evidence does not settle: The consonants allow both the active and the passive reading, and the verse names no deliverer; Clarke also reads the historical deliverers Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah and the Maccabees.