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the ten tribes, because in his esteem the kingdom of Judah alone constituted the kingdom or people of God. But he has shown clearly enough in Oba 1:18 that he does not regard them as enemies of Judah, or as separated from the kingdom of God, but as being once more united to Judah as the people of God. And being thus incorporated again into the people of God, he thinks of them as dwelling with them upon the soil of Judah, so that they are included in the population of the four districts of this kingdom. For this reason, no other places of abode are assigned to the Ephraimites and Gileadites. The idea that they are to be transplanted altogether to heathen territory, rests upon a misapprehension of the true facts of the case, and has no support whatever in Oba 1:20. “The sons of Israel” in Oba 1:20 cannot be the ten tribes, as Hengstenberg supposes, because the other portion of the covenant nation mentioned along with them would in that case be described as Judah, not as Jerusalem. “The sons of Israel” answer to the “Jacob” in Oba 1:10, and the “house of Jacob” in Oba 1:17, in connection with which special prominence is given to Jerusalem in Oba 1:11, and to Mount Zion in Oba 1:17; so that it is the Judaeans who are referred to, - not, however, as distinguished from the ten tribes, but as the people of God, with whom the house of Jacob is once more united. In connection with the gâluth (captivity) of the sons of Israel, the gâluth of Jerusalem is also mentioned, like the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem in Joe 3:6, of whom Joel affirms, with a glance at Obadiah, that the Phoenicians and Philistines have sold them to the sons of Javan. These citizens of Judah and Jerusalem, who have been taken prisoners in war, are called by Obadiah the gâluth of the sons of Israel and Jerusalem, the people of God being here designated by the name of their tribe-father Jacob or Israel. That we should understand by the “sons of Israel” Judah, as the tribe or kernel of the covenant nation, is required by the actual progress apparent in v.20 in relation to Oba 1:19.
After Obadiah had foretold to the house of Jacob in Oba 1:17-19 that it would take possession of the land of their enemies, and spread beyond the borders of Canaan, the question still remained to be answered, What would become of the prisoners, and those who had been carried away captive, according to Oba 1:11 and Oba 1:14? This is explained in Oba 1:20. The