Charles Wolfe is remembered for just one poem ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna’. We might say the same of W.E. Henley and his poem ‘Invictus’ (‘I am the master of my fate’) or of A.H. Clough and his poem ‘Say not the struggle naught availeth’. But to say no more than that would be churlish. These three men had other irons in the fire.
Wolfe was a Church of Ireland clergyman who died at the age of 31. Both Henley and Clough lived longer and wrote other worthwhile poems with a Stoical flavour. Henley’s familiar poem caught on as an example of standing up to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. He had troubles enough in life. The amputation of a leg, which led Robert Louis Stevenson to model Long John Silver on him, was followed by a disease in the other leg. As for Clough, he proved himself an invaluable assistant to Florence Nightingale. As it happened, he came to prominence during WW2 when Churchill quoted his line ‘But westward, look, the land is bright.’ With the help of Clough Churchill eyed the prospect of the USA joining the alliance against Nazi Germany. He had us looking across the Atlantic. To be known for one poem is no small feat. Most of us do not get anything like as far.
Which brings us to Obadiah. Who, you may ask? Well, he was an Old Testament prophet. We know nothing of his life. His name (meaning worshipper of God) has never caught on. If I remember correctly, there is no Obadiah among Hardy’s rustics, though there is a Cain. Obadiah was just not in the same league as major prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel. There is little point in trying to prove otherwise. Most of us would have difficulty in finding his poetry in the Old Testament. Even fewer would be able to quote anything from his scanty output of little poems. Some might go further and wonder why he appears in the Bible at all.
This question introduces us to the problem of the canon. That is the measure applied to a selection of documents, what’s in and what’s out. Where do the Jewish and Christian Scriptures begin and end? We find the same question is asked about European literature: Dickens and Dante, Shakespeare and Tolstoy. See ‘The Western Canon’ by Harold Bloom.
There is next to nothing, then, in the way of a major work from Obadiah. His contribution to the Jewish scriptures is the shortest of them all. It is a miniature, a handful of verses on the theme of the treachery of Israel’s neighbour Edom. With a capital city in mountainous territory, the Edomites (descendants of Esau) would undoubtedly have noticed God’s threat through his mouthpiece Obadiah: ‘Though you soar as high as an eagle and your nest is set among the stars, even from there I shall bring you down.’
So, Obadiah is not a name to conjure with. He did not make the headlines. He was more a man hidden away in a nook or cranny. What he did was to offer hope after adversity for his people. The day of the Lord, he said, is coming. Things will be sorted out. There is just a hint here of a coming Kingdom of God. This perhaps qualifies him for consideration during Advent.
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