The Book of Obadiah at the beginning of the Exile, and the great prophecy of the Servant at the end of it—how true was his word who said: _He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him._
The subsequent history of Israel and Edom may be quickly traced. When the Jews returned from exile they found the Edomites in possession of all the Negeb, and of the Mountain of Judah far north of Hebron. The old warfare was resumed, and not till 130 B.C. (as has been already said) did a Jewish king bring the old enemies of his people beneath the Law of Jehovah. The Jewish scribes transferred the name of Edom to Rome, as if it were the perpetual symbol of that hostility of the heathen world, against which Israel had to work out her calling as the peculiar people of God. Yet Israel had not done with the Edomites themselves. Never did she encounter foes more dangerous to her higher interests than in her Idumean dynasty of the Herods; while the savage relentlessness of certain Edomites in the last struggles against Rome proved that the fire which had scorched her borders for a thousand years, now burned a still more fatal flame within her. More than anything else, this Edomite fanaticism provoked the splendid suicide of Israel, which beginning in Galilee was consummated upon the rocks of Masada, half-way between Jerusalem and Mount Esau.
[511] Irby and Mangles’ _Travels_: cf. Burckhardt’s _Travels in Syria_, and Doughty, _Arabia Deserta_, I.
[518] See the details in Vol. I., pp. 129 f.
[520] We even know the names of some of these deities from the theophorous names of Edomites: _e.g._ Baal-chanan (Gen. xxxvi. 38), Hadad (_ib._ 35; 1 Kings xi. 14 ff.); Malikram, Ḳausmalaka, Ḳausgabri (on Assyrian inscriptions: Schrader, _K.A.T._² 150, 613); Κοσαδαρος, Κοσβανος, Κοσγηρος, Κοσνατανος (_Rev. archéol._ 1870, I. pp. 109 ff., 170 ff.), Κοστοβαρος (Jos., XV. _Ant._ vii. 9). See Baethgen, _Beiträge zur Semit. Rel. Gesch._, pp. 10 ff.
[522] Obadiah 11, 12: cf. Ezek. xxxv. 12 f.
[523] 1-5 or 6. See above, pp. 167, 171 f.
_INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS OF THE PERSIAN PERIOD_
“The exiles returned from Babylon to found not a kingdom but a church.”