Obadiah Again

Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; Thd)

Visiting Professor

Department of Liberal Education

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

The more one studies the prophets the clearer it becomes that these men and women saw events that could not be understood except by that generation in which age the fulfillment of the events was to occur. If anyone missed it, other later generations may bring the threads together in unwinding the meaning. Obadiah was such a book. To qualify for a proper analyst of the prophets, you have to be a Seventh-day Adventist since they are the only official historicists around. Their historicistic method is far advanced than any other religious system today and this means they will be quicker and clearer to the reality of the events behind the description by the prophets. That includes Obadiah.

Obadiah says the vision is concerning Edom. But did you know that a Middle Age Rabbi identified Edom with Rome? If Obadiah was prophecying in the days of Ahab then to connect it with Edom is 800 years later thus Obadiah saw events, according to this Rabbi, that long in advance. It is no longer forthtelling as preterists are explaining but fortelling as historicists are saying. He is correct. There is an updated knowledge we may add to the Rabbi’s conclusion and that is that Edom as Rome has a long history of association with that nomenclature. I saw research on this issue in the dissertation on Isaiah by Arie van der Kooij, the Calvinist Semiticist of fame from Leiden Holland. Secondly, Babylon was such a name that transferred to other territories since it stood for an empire. Niniveh was called Babylon in the Assyrian empire and when Babylon became Babylon in the Babylonian empire, it was just a name transference. I saw the article of Stephanie Dalley to this effect. Then there is Shushan that may have been the next Babylon but we have no evidence of this. Athens in the time of Alexander would have been Babylon but we do not have strong evidence for this. What we do have, is that Rome was called Babylon. The Holy Roman empire since 538 CE will also be called Babylon. Thus, when the Holy Roman empire fell in 1798 and world order went into the hands of the west it was and is the USA that is the navigators since then. Babylon will move to the USA and did. So is Edom as skelwoord or derogatory word. Rome is called Babylon and Edom. Therefore, the conclusion this brings us to is that all empires listed by Nebuchadnezzar’s world empires of Daniel 2, were in essence Babylons, and Edoms. What do we call it? Name transference or name sharing? Or did the empire capitol became a symbol that was transferred to later empires?

We come this far to indicate that Edom in Obadiah is Rome as the Rabbi said, but we went one step further and is saying that it is the USA. Where on earth did we come to such a conclusion? Uriah Smith interpreted Daniel’s power that took over from the Holy Roman empire in verse 36 as France that gave the papacy a deadly wound in 1798. Actually France was acting out what they got from the USA and the constitutional principles of the USA became the essence of the new world order with themselves as the leaders until today. That part Uriah Smith did not foresee. Revelation 13’s second beast after the deadly wound is not France but the USA, the lamblike beast. Religiously that is for politically and as a force in Daniel 11:36-45 it goes through other countries with wars in similar descript as Operation Desert Storm and other Middle Eastern wars or initiatives. Although a force, it is a lamb to religion. It is different than Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, Rome, and the Holy Roman empire that with metal characteristics killed religious and faithful people. Religious toleration makes the USA empire a “lamblike beast” like Revelation 13 and also qualify it to be the foot of clay of Daniel 2. But, Daniel saw that the last empire on earth will be a mixture of clay and iron. The iron part is that last phenomenon that will inaugurate the Time of Jacobs Trouble. Obadiah saw all this and how do we know that? Obadiah 1:15. The day of the Lord is near (qarob). This brings us to reflection on the concept of the nearness of the end time.

In an article in Calvinistic Theological Journal 47 (2012): 257-274 the parish pastor Sydney Greidamus wrote on “Applying Daniel’s messages to the church Today”. In his first footnote he cites the external examiner of my wife, Craig Evans and also the Seventh-day Adventist Zdravko Stefanovic. Stefanovic is the one who has designed the Sabbath School quarterly for the second half of this year for the church studying the prophets. Greidamus attempts to apply Daniel for contemporary understanding but unfortunately, he is using the preteristic concepts of the pagan writer Porphyry et al through the centuries who wish to place Daniel’s message originally in the context of Antiochus Epiphanes. Porphyry’s preterism was counteracted by Reformed Theology with strong flavors of historicism mostly until the 1844 Dissapointment (also mentioned by Greidamus) when Reformed Theologian Thomas Myers has changed the course of prophetic hermeneutics in 1854 in Appendixes to Calvin’s Commentaries (Daniel) from flavors of historicism to dogmatic preterism and idealism. Greidamus swallowed Porphyry and Myers hook and sinker. He then proceed to some commentes on the nearness of the endtime. He cites his teacher, also the teacher of Seventh-day Adventist Historicist Hans Larondelle, namely, G. Berkhouwer, for his preteristic view on the nearness of the endtime. He explains that Berkhouwer in the 1960’s said that the nearness of the endtime means that history is a winding path along the crevices and cliffs of chaos and that all the time the end is near but in the future the road will drop over the cliff for the final endtime. But these words of Berkhouwer and Greidamus and other must be placed into proper modern Reformed context as opposed to Adventist context. Reformed hermeneutics sees the chaos cliff of the history road as a glorious end for the individual who dies from history because of the Greek philosophy of the immortality of the soul superimposed by Reformed Theology over the explicit denial of it by the Bible. Thus, for them each individual lives close to the end of his individual time so that when his/her history stops, they the soul goes to heaven. The body will probably be collected at the final end of time? Adventists do not believe in this pagan inroad into Biblical Systematics. The only resurrection for Adventists is the final one at the Second Coming of Christ and thus the final endtime is the only endtime. There is a winding road of history along the cliff of chaos, for Adventism also but that chaos and individual death exists due to the Fall of Adam and Eve and as a punishment for their sins. There is a complete dualism in the individual death and the glorious final endtime. The one is sad and painful for the ones staying behind but the other one is glorious and happy at the Second Coming and never any time between death and the Second Coming.

And this place us on the correct path to discuss the book of Obadiah one more time. We know it is the End of Time and proof of that is Obadiah 1:15 “For the day of the Lord over all the nations is near (qarob)”. It is all the nations, not just one or two or even three. Not all in one generation. It is the absolute all in all nations. This is not a nearness of individual death of which Greidamus spoke. It is not Calvinistically presentistic. It is eschatological as in Adventism. Look how Yahweh is talking in pluralism of the Trinity in Obadiah 1:1 “We have heard” (shama`enu). The –nu pronominal suffix is we and in the plural and there is no denial of it. The Lord heard tidings from the Lord. Rabbi Redak thought that it was nations that were saying this but there is no indication in the text that it is by nations. Edom is probably the USA and this identification is by this author individually alone and not official doctrine of the SDA denomination. It has to do with the exegesis of Daniel 11:36 until 45 that is applied to the second beast of Revelation 13 literally. Thus, the last empire before the End Time will be the USA and therefore Edom here is the USA. But, that last empire will suffer some setbacks in future as is indicated by Revelation 18 “Fallen is Babylon” hymn and also inaugurating the Time of Trouble with Daniel 11:45 “and he will come to his end and no one for him”. The Lord will make the USA seemingly at that day small among the nations and very despised. We know it is the USA since this power said in their heart: “who will bring me down to the earth”? Obadiah 1:3. NASA has space station and Mars objectives. “If you go up high like an eagle, and if you place your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, says the Lord” Obadiah 1:4.     

As we indicated, this end of the USA will inaugurate the Third World World Order which will run on piracy and plundering principles to install enforced socialism (maybe?). “Did thieves come upon you, did plunderers of the night?” (Obadiah 1:5). “Will they not steal till they have enough”. This is the characteristic of the Time of Trouble. Esau could be the Arabic belt? “How his hidden things were revealed?” (Obadiah 1:6). Intelligentsia from the USA and the Arab world will seemingly be destroyed in that time (Obadiah 1:8).