Obadiah

In spite of its diminutive size, the book of the minor prophet Obadiah has consistently occasioned major literary-critical, exegetical and hermeneutical questions. Jerome's observation 'the shorter, the more difficult' serves as a useful illustration of the complexity of the work. The present commentary seeks to answer some of the questions surrounding the book and its author on the basis of the literary structure of the transmitted text. The volume makes use for the first time of ancient text divisions gleaned from the Masoretic, Syriac and Greek textual traditions, with the help of which the colometry of the book is established and the larger literary units thereof delimited. The exegetical comments are based, among other things, on recent tradition-historical and linguistic research. The result is a contemporary commentary, accessible to students and scholars alike.