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that we meet with references to him in not a few of the later prophets from Amos onwards, furnish no evidence that will bear a moment's test. “The originality of Joel,” as Delitzsch observes, “is no disproof of this dependence; for, on the one hand, the reproduction of certain elements from Obadiah's prophecy does not in the least invalidate his originality, inasmuch as the reproduction is itself original; and, on the other hand, not one of the prophets with whom we are acquainted (not even Isaiah) is so original as that the prophecies of his predecessors are not echoed by him, just as Obadiah, even if he were original in relation to Joel, had the prophecies of Balaam as his original, and imitates them in several passages (compare Num 24:21, Num 24:18-19 with Oba 1:4, Oba 1:18-19).” But the fact that Joel rests upon Obadiah is proved in the most decisive manner by the expression in Joe 2:32, “as the Lord hath said,” where the foregoing thought, which is common both to Joel and Obadiah, viz., “in Mount Zion ... shall be phelētâh” (see Oba 1:17), is described as a well-known word of the Lord. Now Joel can only have taken this from Obadiah, for it occurs nowhere else; and the idea suggested by Ewald, that it is derived from an older oracle that has been lost, would only be feasible if the later date of Obadiah, or his dependence upon Joel, could not be demonstrated by conclusive arguments, which is not the case.
A correct determination of the relation in which Obadiah stood to Joel, especially if we compare the prophecies of Amos, who also alludes to Joel (compare Joe 3:16 with Amo 1:2, and Joe 3:18 with Amo 9:13), leads with the greatest probability to the conclusion that Obadiah reproaches the Edomites with the hostility which they displayed when Judah and Jerusalem were plundered by the Philistines and Arabians in the time of Jehoram. In the reign of Jehoram the Edomites threw off the Judaean supremacy (compare 2Ki 8:20-22, and 2Ch 21:8-10); and in connection with this rebellion, they appear to have planned a great massacre upon the Judaeans,