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conjunction, I would not be understood as if in every passage where I have preferred such inferential sense, it was the only one admissible, but readily acknowledge a narrative future, or a predictive tense, to be a possible construction in some cases where I have not preferred it. Hebrew scholars in general will allow that in different passages, where such constructions are disputed, there are probabilities varying in almost infinite degrees.

In vii. 6, (A. V. ix. 7,) "Israel ascendere feci de terrâ Ægypti, et Palæstinos de Cappadociâ, et Syros de Cyrene."

INTRODUCTION TO OBADIAH.

SUCH inbred characteristics as the Old Testament would form in the true Jew, a devout faith in God and a stern patriotism, both tending to degenerate into a vindictive zeal, are stamped on the twenty verses of Obadiah. Beyond this, we have no certainty of his life or period, barely of his name, since Ovad-Jah, Obediens Jehovæ, (British Ufudh i'r Iah), Jehovah's-worshipper, may suit any one of the thousand little known seers, who, in the neighbourhood of some sanctuary, or in the Prophets' schools, as afterwards kindred spirits in the better monasteries, devoted their lives to an idea of thought or adoration, and breathed themselves in a psalm, a prophecy, or a hymn. Hence, although the language, as a whole, implies antiquity, it is not wonderful that the clear mention of a day of siege and calamity as something past should have made good critics imagine the reign of Nebuchadnezzar the date of its composition. Thus Archbishop Newcome, with the fullest reason, says, "I suppose he prophesied between "the taking of Jerusalem, B.C. 587, and the destruction of "Edom by Nebuchadnezzar, which latter event probably "took place a very few years after the former. Ussher

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places the destruction of Jerusalem 588 B.C., and the "siege of Tyre 585 B.C. This siege lasted thirteen years, "in which interval Ussher says that the Sidonians, Moab

ites, Ammonites, and Idumæans seem to have been "subdued by the Babylonians." (Joseph. Antiq. x. 9, 7.)

It is not a valid answer to this sensible view of the Archbishop, to remark that the English version gives as

reproofs of the past ("Thou shouldest not have looked, neither have rejoiced," &c. vv. 12-13) what in Hebrew are prohibitions of the future. For the prohibition is so framed, that it pre-supposes the offence. Rather an additional argument for Newcome's view, if not for a still later date, may be drawn from the last three verses, which imply extension and distribution of a land recovered after it had been lost. And if the high authorities are right, who follow De Sacy in explaining, with the aid of a cuneiform inscription, Sepharad as Sardis, considering that Josephus (Antiq. xii. 3, 4) mentions a settlement of Jews in Lydia by Antiochus about B.C. 200, there will appear reason in the view, that the three last verses of the book are as late as the Asmonean Princes, and the deliverers on Mount Sion may refer to the forcible conversion of the Edomites to Judaism by John Hyrcanus (Jos. Antiq. xiii. ix. 1, with Whiston's note). Even without pressing this argument, or separating these three verses from the earlier portion, we may find in Psalm cxxxvii., "Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites Jerusalem's day;" and in Jeremiah xlix., where the prophecy is almost reproduced, abundant justification of the many critics who make the poem a complaint of Edom's malice at the time. of the exile, and a cry for retribution upon him. Let the reader also compare the xxvth and xxxvth chapters of Ezekiel; and for the boundaries, Ez. xlvii. 13-21.

On the other hand, it should be considered, that this poem contains no mention of Assyrian or Babylonian, nor allusion to them (unless as strangers in v. 11), and the phrases "Jacob and Joseph," may seem to imply the existence of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. And as the poem joins on to Amos like a continuation of the woe to Edom, so whoever arranged the Hebrew canon may have had reasons, not infallible, but worth attention, for the order

in which the books are given. Thus, after the dignity of the four greater Prophets had been consulted, Hosea may have been placed first, as the earliest of whom the arranging scribes knew any history; Joel, less known, but evidently ancient, seemed to deserve the second place: Amos is placed chronologically enough, especially if we imagine a little interval between his preaching and his writing. The book ascribed to Jonah is placed in the age of its supposed author. Now, if Obadiah lived about the same time, he may have seen Edomite hangers-on of the army of Joash revenging their recent defeat under Amaziah, and entering Jerusalem with mockery, when its wall was broken down four hundred cubits (2 Kings xiv. 13—16). This retaliation from the recently-conquered would be exceedingly provoking. Again, if we look back to the reign of Jehoshaphat, we read of an expedition against Judah, in which Edomites leagued with Moabites were destroyed by the "men of their own covenant" (2 Chron. xx. 23): and this, or a similar though unrecorded event, may have suggested verse 7. Remembering an Obadiah among the instruments of Jehoshaphat's reform (2 Chron. xvii. 7), one might well think him the most likely of all recorded of that name to be the author of our poem, and so be led to an earlier date. Such conflicting phenomena of the case have led the sagacious Ewald to imagine an older writing re-cast at the time of the Exile. This supposition would account for the mention of strangers, v. 11, and the picture of utter downfall, v. 16; nor is it rendered improbable by anything we know of the custody of the sacred writings. I cannot think its signs so demonstrative, but that it remains more natural to consider the poem as a single whole, with only a probable addition of three verses at the end. Our prophecy then may be deemed a sharp denunciation by some devout patriot, written between the

reigns of Jehoshaphat and Uzziah, B.C. 900 to 800, even if edited after the exile with fresh remembrance of Edomite feud, and having possibly a verse of Asmonean date.

It might help us, if we had a more certain interpretation of the singular word Sepharad, v. 20. The Septuagint in despair made it Ephratha, Nescio cur-remarks Jerome; possibly, as has been guessed, meaning Sephratha. Jerome's Hebrew tutor made it the Bosporus, and connected it with Hadrian's carrying off the Jews; a painfully characteristic instance of Rabbinism led by literalisation, and creating prediction by misunderstanding. Some have thought of Sippara in Mesopotamia, which is Sepharvaim. Modern Jews, finding the word Chaldaised by euphonic vowels at its commencement and its end, imagine Espamia or Syriac Espania (quasi Esphardia) to mean Spain; whence the Spanish Jews are called Sephardim. (Comp. Bochart, Geogr. pp. 82, 314. Rosenmüller in h. 1.)

And since Sepharad was to be Spain, some made Sarepta France. These things are chiefly valuable, as shewing the germination of errors.

Three interpretations may be treated as serious.

(1.) Since the other names in the passage belong all to Palestine, or its borders, and since Sarepta is given as the limit of extension for the northern frontier, it is probable that the corresponding Sepharad is some place which should be the limit of extension southwards; either one not otherwise known, but probably in Edom; or of which the name is slightly altered, as e.g. Saphar, a town in Arabia, which fulfils some of the conditions. This hypothesis, though incomplete, suits the passage best, especially the parallelism; though not the order of the words.

(2.) Again, since inscriptions, reported by the traveller Niebuhr, interpreted by Burnouf and Lassen, and applied to this passage by De Sacy, give Sepharad as a Persian

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