Jeremiah 49:7-22

Concerning Edom] The bitterness of the tone in which Edom is addressed in this prophecy is doubtless to be ascribed to the affinity between them and the Jews, which made the unnatural exultation of Edom over the fallen fortunes of their kinsmen the more offensive.

Much of the earlier part of this prophecy is almost verbally the same as Obadiah 1:1, while in Obadiah the vv. come in more natural sequence. Obadiah seems to have written (see his Jeremiah 49:11) after the destruction of Jerusalem, whereas the prophecy in Jeremiah is connected by its grouping with the 4th year of Jehoiakim (see intro. to Jeremiah 46-49). To meet this difficulty it has been suggested either (a) that the earlier part of Obadiah's prophecy was written before Nebuchadnezzar's overthrow of Jerusalem, and only the latter part after that event; or, (b) that both prophets embodied in their writings an earlier prediction. Another suggested solution is that Obadiah is referring to an earlier overthrow, viz. in the time of Jehoram (2 Chronicles 21:17).