Obadiah-Jonah-Micah in Canonical

Context: The Nature of Prophetic

Literature and Hermeneutics
MARKE. BIDDLE
Professor of Old Testament
Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond

A series of observations concerning the books of Obadiah,

Jonah, and Micah raise questions about prophecy's very nature
and pose the issues of definition and interpretation in a way
that can help to address this problem for modern readers of
biblical prophecy.

W orld events, especially in the Middle East, have given the apocalyptic imag-
ination new life. Do events in Iraq reflect the fulfillment of the Bible's
ancient prophecies concerning the downfall of Babylon? Is Armageddon
imminent? Of course, historically-informed readers of scripture will recognize not only that
modern Iraqis are Arabic in ethnicity and not the descendents of the ancient Babylonians,
but that Babylon has already fallen once in fulfillment of the prophetic prediction. Whereas
popular readings of biblical prophecy as apocalyptic prediction fail to take history seriously,
however, a purely historical reading fails to credit "already-fulfilled" prophecy with any
ongoing canonical authority in the life of the church. How does biblical prophecy function,
then, as the word of God?

A series of observations concerning the books of Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah raise
questions about prophecy's very nature, or better put, pose the issues of definition and
interpretation in a way that can help to address this problem for modern readers of biblical
prophecy. Second Temple Judaism's shift of focus to proper interpretations of fixed
prophetic texts as the source of prophetic revelation, as a transition from oracles to be pro-
claimed to texts to be interpreted,1 which can be understood as very nearly identical with
the literary fixation of the prophetic corpus itself, offers a clue as to how the curators of

^.e., toward "Auslegung statt Offenbarung!* See Armin Lange, Vom Prophetischen Wort zur Prophetischen
Tradition: Studien zur Traditions- und Redaktionsgeschichte innerprophetischer Konflikte in der Hebräischen Bibel
(FAT 34; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 269.
APRIL 2007 Interpretation 155

biblical prophecy designed it to be read. From the outset, this literary process involved the
hermeneutical tasks of selection, editorial interpretation, and extrapolation.

In particular, the Book of the Twelve constitutes a microcosm of the literary process
evident throughout the prophetic corpus. The examples of Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah
illustrate the fact that features of the transition from revelation to exegesis already charac-
terize the prophetic corpus itself. Evidence supports the hypothesis that the "canonical
impetus" that produced the prophetic corpus required the curators of this corpus to shape
it such that it could function as more than a mere historical record of prophetic activity. In
order to serve authoritatively beyond the historical moment, it must include varieties of
positions on certain questions; it must permit and even exemplify the transposition of liter-
arilyfixedmaterial onto new situations; it must transform situation-bound prophetic oracles
into open-ended sayings applicable to changing and unforeseen historical contingencies;
and it must reflect a sophisticated theory of prophecy and fulfillment that anticipates the
varying needs of changing times. These editorial principles, in turn, define for subsequent
interpreters a hermeneutical approach to the corpus they produced.

OPTIONAL SCENARIOS

Several instances can be cited in Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah of the conscious inclusion
of views virtually in opposition to other portions of the prophetic corpus to accommodate
the situation-bound nature of individual messages. Micah is a prime example, with interlocu-
tors extending beyond the Twelve to include, especially, Isaiah2 and Jeremiah.3 In particular,
many of the widely recognized Mican allusions to quotations and near-quotations of Isaiah4
challenge Isaiah in a series of disputes.

1. Isaiah and Micah Debate Jerusalem's Immediate Fate. As the Jeremiah tradition notes
( Jer 26), Micah's fundamental message during the Assyrian crisis—namely that Israel's sick-
ness had infected Judah who would soon suffer the consequences—had not, in fact, come
to pass some 150 years later. Instead, Isaiah's promise, despite the initial disbelief of Ahaz

2
In addition to the much-discussed Mie 4:1-4 and Isa 2:1-4 parallel, cf. Mie 1:8 and Isa 20:2-4; Mie 1:7 and Isa
10:10-11; the surprisingly rare expression ktyhwh dibber (nine occurrences total) in Mie 4:4 and Isa 1:2; 22:25;
24:3; 25:8; Joel 4:8; Obad 18; cf. also Mie 4:7//Isa 24:23 (see Gabriele Metzner, Kompositionsgeschichte des
Michabuches [European University Studies XXIII/635; New York: Peter Lang, 1998], 143); Mie 4:9-10//Isa 21:34;
Mie 5:6,7//Isa 10:21; Mie 6:9//Isa 10:16; Mie 7:8,9//Isa 49:25; 51:22; 60:3,19-20; 62:2 (cf. Isa 47:5); Mie 7:10//Isa
47:8; Mie 7:11//Isa 49:19-20; 54:2; Mie 7:14//Isa 10:18; Mie 7:17//Isa 49:23 (cf. Ps 72:9). The "remnant of Jacob"
concept in Mie 5:6,7//Isa 10:21 is particularly suggestive. For more on the motif in Isaiah, see Mark Biddle, "The
City of Chaos and the New Jerusalem: Isaiah 24-27 in Contexte Perspectives in Religious Studies 22 (1995): 5-12
and "Lady Zion's Alter Egos: Isaiah 47:1-15 and 57:6-13 as Structural Counterparts," in New Visions of the Book of
Isaiah (JSOTSup 214, ed. Roy Melugin and Marvin Sweeney; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1997), 130-135. For the inter-
relationship of the Isaiah and Micah traditions as a whole, see further Eric Bosshard, "Beobachtungen zum
Zwölfprophetenbuch,,> BN40 (1987): 30-62.
3
Mie 1:8//Jer 4:8; 25:33-34; 49:3; Joel 1:13; Mie 1:9//Jer 15:18; Mie l:10//Jer 25:33-34; Mie l:14//Jer 15:18; Mie
6:l-5//Jer 2:4^13,26-32; Mie 1:2//Jer 18:8; Mie 6:16//Jer 19:8; 25:9,18; 29:18; 51:37; and most famously, Jer 26:18
cites a form of Mie 3:12 in a discussion of the problem of interpreting prophecy.
4
Although Micah and Isaiah employ different terms for "barefoot" (Mie 1:8—sôlah Isa 20:2-4—yähep), for
example, both are rare terms (elsewhere solai occurs only in Job 12:17,19; yàhep only in 2 Sam 15:30 and Jer 2:25;
these four passages account for all of the occurrences of the idea in the OT) that the LXX translates with the one
term, anupodetos, making the intertextual relationship self-evident.
156 Interpretation APRIL 2007

and then of Hezekiah, that YHWH would spare at least Jerusalemfromthe Assyrians proved
true. The Jeremiah tradition does not stand alone in recognizing the difficulty; Mie 3:11
calls attention to the contrast. Some, Isaiah (yesaya chu) included, it is true, called for the
people to "lean (yüsä cènû; cf. Isa 10:20; 50:10) upon YHWH," relying upon YHWH's pres-
ence "in [their] midst (beqirbènû)" to avert pending disaster. While Micah does not directly
cite Isaiah here, the allusion to the Immanuel ("God is with us," i.e. "in our midst") sign is
unmistakable, especially given the care the curators of the prophetic corpus took to establish
the relative chronology of the two prophets and the many allusions, references, and direct
quotations that link Micah and Isaiah. Micah famously insists to the contrary that "Zion
will become a ploughed field and Jerusalem a ruin heap" (Mie 3:12). Furthermore, Micah's
program includes unmistakable parallels between the charges of perversions of justice that
climax in Mie 3 and similar accusations in Amos 5. References to the "remnant" in both texts
(Mie 3:3; Amos 5:15) suggest the post-crisis perspective of the redactions that produced final
or near-final forms of the books of which they are parts and, probably not coincidentally,
recall Isaiah's remnant theme. Like Mie 3:11 ("is not YHWH among us?"), Amos 5:14b
("and it may be that YHWH, God of Hosts, will be with you as you have said") recalls
Immanuel, Isaiah's promise, and renders it conditional. In effect, then, the inclusion of both
Isaiah and Micah in the prophetic corpus, especially when seen through the lens of Jer 26,
undermines any simplistic dichotomy of true and false prophecy. Isaiah 7 proved true in the
short term; Mie 3, in the long-term.

2. Isaiah and Micah Debate Jerusalem's Future. Isaiah 2:1-4 and Mie 4:l-4 5 constitute
another instance of debate between the two prophetic traditions. Setting aside the question
of literary dependence, the frequent verbal similarities between these two passages do not
mask the point of contention. Instead, they highlight it. In Micah, only the opening unit (Mie
4:1-5) portrays a somewhat uniformly irenic idyll. After its opening depiction of the elevation
of Mt. Zion, the pilgrimage of the nations to Zion to learn the ways of YHWH, and the end
of war, it goes on virtually to repudiate much of what it has promised. According to v. 4,
the ultimate result of the elevation of Zion will not, after all, be an era of universal commu-
nity, but an isolationism in which each will be secure in the privacy of one's own property
(cf. 1 Kgs 5:5). The conclusion of this opening unit goes a step further. After w. 1-2 have
foretold a day in which the nations of the world will convert to the worship of Israel's God,
v. 5 very provincially reasserts that each nation of the world worships its own god and that
the people of Israel will always be the sole rightful and true Yahwists. The effect is to mitigate
the universalism and idealism of w. 1-3, transforming the opening unit into a primarily

5
Marvin Sweeney, "Micah's Debate with Isaiah," JSOT93 (2001): 111-124.
T H E B O O K OF T H E TWELVE Interpretation 157

Israel-oriented promise of salvation in the form of security amongst the nations of the
world.

Significantly, Isa 2:2-5 manifests none of the internal tensions noted in its Micah coun­
terpart. The major differences between the two parallels occur precisely at those points of
inconsistency. The reference to privacy and security under one's own vine and fig tree,
which serves as the transition in Micah to the reassertion of the exclusive relationship
between Israel and Yahweh, does not appear in the Isaiah version. Furthermore, the Isaianic
text concludes with the liturgical invitation for the house of Jacob to "walk in the light of
YHWH" and makes no statement retracting the hope for universal Yahwism.

Within the Twelve, Mie 4:1-4 belongs to a series of texts (Mie 4:11-13; 5:1,14; Joel 4:2,
9-17; Zeph 3:8; Zech 12:2,3-5,6,8,9; 14:1-3,12-15,16-19) that all deal with the topic of
"the nations gathered in/against Jerusalem." In general, these texts can be divided into two
major categories:6 in one view, the nations will assemble against Jerusalem to lay siege, but,
since they do not understand YHWH's plan for history, they will be surprised by the Day of
YHWH (Mie 4:11-13; 5:1; Joel 4:9-17; Zeph 3:8; Zech 12:2,3-5,6,9; 14:1-3,12-15); in the
other, the nations will pilgrimage to Zion to worship YHWH or submit to his lordship
(Mie 4:1-4; Zech 14:16-19; cf. Zech 2:11; 8:22-23; 9:10). The two viewpoints clearly conflict
with one another, and may even represent competing ideologies. A complicated system of
interdependent links these texts across the bounds of the limits of the books constitutive
of the Twelve,7 and perhaps most importantly, the conflict manifests itself both within
Micah (4:1-5 contra 4:12-13; 5:14) and repeatedly between Micah and Isaiah. Mie 7:12,
which seems to describe either the return of only the Exiles to Jerusalem or the pilgrimage
of the servile nations "licking dust" as they bow in obeisance, stands in a comparably con­
trapuntal relationship to Isa 19:18-25 (cf. v. 23, "In that day there will be a highway from
Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and
the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians" [RSV]).

Similar circumstances prevail with respect to the theme of kingship in Jerusalem: one
group of texts rather simplistically expects the reestablishment of the Davidic monarchy
(Hos 2:1-2; Amos 9:11-15; Mie 5:1-3; Zech 3:8; 6:12-13), while another focuses instead on
the reign of YHWH (Joel 4:9-16 [implicitly]; Obad 21; Mie 4:1-5; Zeph 3:8-20; Zech 8:1-9;
Zech 14:9,16-17). Presumably, the focus on YHWH's reign reflects the community's embar­
rassment at the delayed restoration of the Davidic monarchy, an embarrassment that may

6
Joel 4:2 is eccentric. According to it, YHWH will assemble the nations in the "Valley of Jehosophat" in order to
plead with them to release the Jews of the Diaspora.
7
For example, either Joel 4:10 or Mie 4:3 cites, and reverses, the other. The direction of the dependency is far
from clear (for the priority of Joel, see Burkard Zapff, Redaktionsgeschichtliche Studien zum Michabuch im Kontext
des Dodekapropheton [BZAW 256; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1997], 261, η. 84; in support of the contrary, see
Martin Bosshard, "Beobachtungen," [BZAW 256; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1997], 42). Similarly, Joel 4:12 and
Mie 4:3 also allude to one another (YHWH judging the nations) and Joel 4:13 and Mie 4:13 seem to be related in
some way. While at present, no clear criterion for determining the direction of dependence between Joel 4:10 and
Mie 4:3 seems to have been established, the fact that Mie 4:1-5 and Zech 14:16-19 stand out in the Twelve for their
Utopian vision deserves full consideration.
158 Interpretation APRIL 2007

explain the strange attitude toward the house of David expressed in Zech 12:7.8 Once again,
Mie 4r-5 manifests ties with other sections of the Twelve;9 once again, individual texts within
Mie 4r-5 adopt contradictory stances. Once again, Mie 4:1-5 offers an alternative to Isa 2.

Marvin Sweeney summarizes Micah and Isaiah regarding the coming era of world
peace in terms of these two areas of difference, differences that characterize the eschatological
discussion across the Book of the Twelve and, indeed, the entire corpus of the latter prophets.
First, whereas Isaiah foresees a day when all the world will worship YHWH, Micah looks to a
day when Israel, returned to Zion, will be free, as will all other nations, to worship its God
in peace. Second, "the book of Isaiah points to a future when Israel will be restored, but it
will stand as part of the larger Persian empire with which YHWH identifies Micah,
however, points to the emergence of an independent state, ruled by a Davidic monarch, that
will bring YHWH's punishment to the nations and stand at their center."10

3. Micah, Joel and Jonah Debate the Implications of YHWH's Patient Mercy. These differ-
ences of viewpoint in the Micah and Isaiah traditions do not constitute the sole example of
debate between canonical prophets that suggests that the prophetic corpus does not define
prophecy simply in terms of verity and falsehood. As with allusions to Isaiah's Immanuel
prophecy, Micah alludes to a motif employed across the Book of the Twelve in order to
establish conditions without explicitly citing the language employed elsewhere. While the
idiom for "impatient" in Mie 2:7 is literally, "short of spirit," whereas that for "even-tempered"
or "slow to anger" in Joel 2:13 and Jonah 4:2 is, literally, "long of nose," Joel and Jonah none-
theless repeat a standard formula describing God's eagerness to forgive found in some form
in Exod 34:6; Num 14:18; Jer 15:15; Jonah 4:2; Nah 1:1-3; Pss 86:15,103:8,145:8; and Neh
9:17. In effect, given the canonical order of the Book of the Twelve, Micah limits Joel's call
to repentance based upon God's patient mercy much as Micah narrows Isaiah's promise of
God's presence.

Although the grammar here is straightforward, it is nonetheless exceedingly difficult to

ascertain who says what to whom. As a consequence, commentators and translators have
offered a number of "solutions" based on the notion that, beginning here, the text reflects
opposition to Micah's preaching. Usually, all or portions of 2:6-7, and sometimes also of
2:10, are taken to be citations of the speech of Micah's opponents.11 In this understanding,
Micah narrates the following speech of his opponents:

8
Zechariah 12-14 seems interested in balancing certain tensions in the Twelve. These observations concerning
the commentary character of certain texts in Zech 9-14 are consistent with a growing body of scholarship that
views Zech 9-14 as an anthology of extrapolations of earlier prophecy. See, among others, Nicholas Ho Fai Tai,
Prophétie ah Schriftauslegung in Sacharla 9-14: Traditions- und kompositionsgeschichtliche Studien (Calwer Theolo-
gische Monographien 17; Stuttgart: Calwer, 1996) and Katarina Larkin, The Eschatology of Second Zechariah: A
Study of the Formation of a Mantological Wisdom Anthology (CBET 6; Kampen: Kok Paros, 1994).
9
Micah 4:6-8 and Zeph 3:14r-20 bear a particularly strong resemblance to one another. Both focus on Zion/
Daughter Jerusalem's wondrous restoration; both describe YHWH as king; and both refer to the gathering and
return of the "lame (hassöle câ)" and the "driven out (hanniddaha)?
10
Marvin Sweeney, "Micah's Debate," 116,122; cf. also Mark E. Biddle, "Intertextuality, Micah, and the Book of
the Twelve: A Question of Method" (unpublished paper presented to the Seminar on the Formation of the Book of
the Twelve at the annual meeting of the SBL, New Orleans, La., 1996).
11
See Helmut Utzschneider, Michas Reise in die Zeit: Studien zum Drama als Genre der Prophetischen Literatur
des Alten Testaments (SBS 180; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1999), 116-133.
THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE Interpretation 159

"Do not preach! (to Micah)," they preach.

"Do not preach such things:
Calamity will not be averted!"'(Micah's opponents quote him).

While this interpretation certainly results in a feasible reading of the text, it can only be
sustained by assuming imprecise (in thefirstinstance) or impersonal (in the third instance)
uses of the plural verbs translated "preach." Literally, the text reads: "You (plural) should not
preach. They preach, (but) they do not preach to (or concerning) these. Calamity will not be
averted." Occam's razor suggests that the initial prohibition, addressed to a group instead of
an individual, may be more easily understood as Micah's charge to the prophets of peace who
preach, but who do not preach authentically. Uncertainties with respect to the identity of the
speakers and addressees in this passage are compounded by the obscurity of the preaching
attributed to one party by the other. Two problems present themselves. First, the noun "calami-
ties," presumably the subject of the clause, is feminine plural while the verb is masculine singu-
lar. Second, it is unclear whether the verb, itself, derives from the root sug> "to move away,
avert" or the root nsg, "to overtake." Unfortunately, the options result in almost antithetical
statements: "He/it (YHWH? the preacher?) will not avert calamities," that is, disaster is
inevitable; or "he/it (calamity?) will not overtake," that is, disaster is entirely avoidable. Micah's
opponents can be expected to have charged Micah with falsely preaching the inevitability of
judgment, whereas Micah will have accused them of discounting the possibility.

The issue is only further complicated by the fact that the citation is introduced by a
negation. These preachers do not preach as they apparently should, the message cited in the
final clause of v. 6. The translation "avert" is further supported by a second occurrence of the
root in Mie 6:14 and by the function of this verb in the theme of alienation of ancestral
heritage (see Deut 19:14; 27:17; Hos 5:10; Prov 22:28,23:10). Contrary to just practice, and
in accordance with the conduct of the powerful, YHWH will "remove the ancient landmarks"
(Prov 22:28, etc.), but YHWH will not remove the calamities in store for these oppressors. In
this reading, only the initial clause of v. 6 is direct address to these false preachers.
Otherwise, Micah speaks about them to the "House of Jacob" mentioned in v. 7. This
understanding assumes that Micah berates his opponents for failing to warn of the
inevitability of disaster and that Micah goes on (v. 7) to contrast the proposed theme with
their actual preaching. Instead of warning of imminent disaster (v. 6b), these false prophets
dangerously emphasize YHWH's patience (v. 7a). In sum, Micah warns that to rely of
promises of YHWH's forgiveness—canonical though they be—in the face of the persistent
160 Interpretation APRIL 2007

and perverse injustices perpetrated by the powerful, is to mock YHWH's mercy. Promises,
like prophecy, are contingent to a degree on the behavior of YHWH's partners in covenant.

4. Jonah's Dilemma. The tables turn for thefigureof Jonah as encountered in the book
bearing his name, of course, with regard to the question of prophecy coming true. No con-
sensus has yet developed in the considerable recent discussion of the motivation for Jonah's
reluctance to carry the message to Nineveh: Was Jonah so virulently anti-Assyrian that he
preferred suffering the consequences of disobedience to facilitating Assyrian repentance and
forgiveness, the conventional Christian reading? Alternatively, was Jonah fearful that YHWH's
willingness to forgive would render him a virtual false prophet?12 Regardless of Jonah's moti-
vation for avoiding his commission and for his anger at YHWH for forgiving the Ninevites,
the circumstances of Jonah's preaching call into question the equation of authentic prophecy
with accurate prediction.

Notably, the book of Jonah takes pains to identify its protagonist with the Jonah ben
Amittai active during the reign of Jeroboam. Why? According to 2 Kgs 14:24-27, Jeroboam II
reestablished the border of Israelfromthe entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, accord-
ing to the word of YHWH, the God of Israel, that he spoke through his servant Jonah the son of
Amittai, the prophetfromGathhepher.... YHWH had not said that he would blot out the name
of Israelfromunder heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.

The book of Amos, of course, takes the almost diametrically opposed position with
respect to Jeroboam. In the well-known confrontation between Amos and Amaziah, the priest
at the royal Israelite sanctuary at Bethel, in which Amos denies that he is a professional
prophet, Amaziah quotes Amos as having said, "Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel
will surely go into exile awayfromits land" (Amos 7:11). The deuteronomistic Jonah's
prophecy came true, Amos' prophecy did not.

Jonah's Nineveh situation demonstrates pointedly what the debates between Isaiah and
Micah, Jonah and Amos, etc. only exemplify. First, as Jack Sasson has argued,13 Jonah's
ambiguous message to Nineveh, itself, probably quite unintentionally left open the possibil-
ity of alternative outcomes: did Jonah realize that, as stated, his oracle could be understood
either as a warning that within forty days Nineveh would be "overturned" or as an offer that
within forty days Nineveh could "turn over" a new leaf, as it were? In effect, Jonah's choice
of language left God and Nineveh with alternatives. Second, assuming that scholarly con-
sensus concerning the dating of the book is accurate, even if understood as Jonah must
have meant it, Jonah's warning stands under the same conditions set by the Jeremiah tradi-

12
As Serge Frolov, ("Returning the Ticket: God and His Prophet in the Book of Jonah," JSOT86 [1999]: 91),
observes: "His professional career is ruined:fromthis time on, no one is likely to be 'frightened' by his word, and a
prophet without a scared audience is just a pitiable lunatic.,>
13
Jack Sasson, Jonah: A New Translation with Introducton, Commentary, and Interpretations (AB 24B; New
York: Doubleday, 1990), 234-35.
THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE Interpretation 161

tion for Micah's preaching concerning the fate of Jerusalem. Thefirstreaders of Jonah
already knew that the Ninevites' repentance had brought only a temporary respite and that
Jonah's warning, as he had intended it, had in fact been realized. Indeed, two other passages
in the Twelve, set in periods centuries after Jonah, renew Jonah's prediction of Assyria's fall,
even making tantalizing allusions to Jonah himself. Just two books later in the canonical
order, Nahum devotes three chapters to a denunciation of Nineveh and Assyria, at the cen-
ter of which Nahum describes a key city, probably Nineveh14 as "taken away naked/into
exile, her maidens lamenting like the sound of doves (yônîm) and beating their breasts"
(Nah 2:8 [Eng 7]). Similarly, the address to an anonymous city in Zeph 3:1 comes on the
heels of the reference to Nineveh in 2:13 and precedes references to "her God" and the
claim "YHWH within her is righteous" in 3:2ff that suggest that Jerusalem/Lady Zion as the
addressee. Versional support, the implied word play on hayyônâ/nînewèh, and the likewise
tantalizing allusion to hayyônà suggests that a Nineveh saying may have been applied secon-
darily to Jerusalem.15 If so, the allusion calls attention once again to the authenticity of
Jonah's message despite its contingency in a specific setting. In fact, Jonah's message was
unusually authentic in that it was both effective in the short term and continued in force
over the long term.

OPTIONAL (RE)INTERPRETATIONS

A second phenomenon that contributed to the hermeneutical orientation and self-

sufficiency of the prophetic corpus involves the exercise of options for interpreting and
extending extant prophetic tradition.

1. Obadiah. The book of Obadiah, in its entirety, constitutes such a citation and inter-
pretation of written texts,16 and seems to acknowledge the fact from the outset (w. 1-2, sir
[NRSV: "messenger"] seems to refer to an earlier oracle—either Jer 49:7-22 or the common
source?17—and serves as a clue to the "learned character of this prophecy"18). Regardless of
whether Obadiah cites Jer 49 or both cite a common tradition, differences of emphasis within
the common material and, especially, in the contexts of the passage common to the two
prophets demonstrate the manner in which the prophetic corpus itself exhibits an attitude

14
The text is somewhat difficult. The opening verb is masculine, although the context seems to call for a femi-
nine to correspond to the city presumably under discussion and the second word, grammatically feminine, can be
understood to mean either "exposed, stripped" or "exiled." Either, as Tanak ( JPS) understands it, 2:8 (7) refers to
Huzzab, and Nineveh, mentioned explicitly in the next verse, is included among the handmaidens, or, somewhat
more likely, thefirstword refers back to the "palaces" of the previous verse. In die latter case, Nineveh may be the
city personified as a female throughout. Furthermore, since nhg can be rendered either "to lament" or "to drive
away," it is tempting, although without versional support, to amend yônîm to a singular, Jonah (yônâ), and trans-
late "her maidens are carried away according to the saying of Jonah." In any case, the allusion is tantalizing.
15
Compare Klaus Seybold, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephanja (ZurBibAT 24/2; Zurich: TVZ, 1991), 110; idem,
Satirische Prophétie: Studien zum Buch Zephanja (SBS 120; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1985), 55 and 79.
16
Evidence of Obadiah's literary dependence on a wide range of texts elsewhere in the Book of the Twelve has
been well documented. See Aaron Schart, Die Entstehung des Zwölfprophetenbuchs: Neubearbeitungen von Amos im
Rahmen Schriftenübergreifender Redaktionsprozesse (BZAW 260; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), 271-74.
17
See Graham S. Ogden, "Prophetic Oracles Against Foreign Nations and Psalms of Communal Lament: The
Relationship of Psalm 127 to Jeremiah 49:7-22 and Obadiah,"/SOT 24 (1982): 89-97.
18
John Barton, Joel and Obadiah: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 135.
162 Interpretation APRIL 2 0 0 7

toward prophecy as the Word of God to be interpreted and models this hermeneutic for its
readers. First, while Jer 49:7-22 alludes to Edom's pride as a ground for the punishment to
come (v. 16), it does not develop this theme in relation to Edom's treatment of Judah. By
contrast, the significant portion of Obad 1-16 not present in Jer 49:7-22, namely w. 10-14,
focuses precisely on this issue. Second, Jer 49 insists instead that Edom cannot avoid drinking
the cup that has come to all nations, presumably at the hands of the Babylonians (cf. Jer 25). In
other words, in Jeremiah, the cup is a historical reference to Babylonian supremacy. Obadiah
inverts the sequence. The cup now lies in the future for all nations who, along with Edom,
will drink "continually" (tammtd, v. 16). Third, in Jeremiah, the unit functions as merely
one among the many oracles against the nations; Obadiah develops the theme of Edom's
punishment for mistreating Judah into an eschatological inversion. In time to come, Edom's
decline, emblematic of the fate of all nations, will be a constitutive element of the restora-
tion and rise of Israel. Now, through a series of allusions and citations particularly from
Joel's eschatological vision of Israel's future,19 Obadiah paints the familiar picture of
YHWH ruling in Zion over a restored Israel and a chastened, subservient Edom.

2. Micah 7:8 and "The Day of YHWH." A similar interpretive option appears in Lady
Zion's response to her gloating enemy in Mie 7:8, which alludes to and reverses two "Day of
YHWH" texts in the core central section of the book of Amos (5:2,20). Thefirstof these
Amos texts laments that Lady Israel has fallen dead; the second warns those among the peo-
ple longing hopefully for the Day of YHWH that, on that day when YHWH marches
against his enemies, they will experience the darkness of his wrath. In Micah, Lady Zion
warns her enemy that, although Amos' prophetic lament has come true, its effects will not
continue in force forever: She has fallen, but she will rise again. Israel's fate will be inverted
in a coming Day of YHWH. Although the first Day of YHWH has come and Israel now sits
in darkness, YHWH is her light! Darkness awaits her enemies.

3. Micah 5:2 (3) and Isaiah 7:14. Perhaps one should also consider Mie 5:2(3) in this
program of optional (re)interpretation. Bernard Renaud20 has argued that this passage is a
late midrash on the announcement of the birth of Immanuel in Isa 7:14 contending that the
birth-giver of Mie 5:2(3) is the Lady Zion who is the subject of the lengthy preceding com-
position beginning in Mie 4. Renaud sees Micah's reference to a "remnant" as an allusion to
Isaiah's son Shear-Yashub; it certainly echoes the familiar Isaian theme. If so, once again,
Micah tradition reconfigures Isaiah tradition, not inverting or disputing it, but extending it
to a new context and preventing prophecy from becoming mere history because it was ful-
filled in terms of its original and specific referent. Viewing Isa 7 as pregnant with meaning

19
Obad 14//Joel 2:32 (Eng 3:5), "survivors"; 4:17 (Eng 3:17), "holy mountain"; 4:19 (Eng 3:19) Edom's arrogant
bloodshed in Judah; Obad 17//Joel 2:32 (3:5), escapees; Obad 21//Joel 3:5; cf. Mie 4:7; Obad 15 (against the
nations = salvation for Israel)//Joel 1:15 (against Israel); 2:1 (against Israel); 4:14 (against the nations), "for the Day
of the Lord draws near."
20
Bernard Renaud, La Formation du Livre du Michée: Tradition et Actualisation (Études Bibliques; Paris: Gabalda,
1977), 247; contra Bruce Waltke, "Micah," in The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary 3 (ed.
Thomas McComiskey; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 706.
THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE Interpretation 163

beyond its immediate historical referent, Micah finds in it a hopeful word for Jerusalem's
future. Now the birth of an awaited child also lies in the future, not solely within Isaiah's
original framework of the Syro-Ephraimitic Crisis.

4. Micah 1:2 and Habakkuk 2:20. Yet another intertextual relationship further underscores
the global, trans-historical purview supplied the book of Micah in the editorial process. The
final phrase of Mie 1:2 replicates the initial phrase of Hab 2:20, with the exceptions of the
divine name (Micah—"Adonai"; Habakkuk—"YHWH") and the prepositions (Micah—
"from his holy temple"; Habakkuk—"in his holy temple"). Since variants of this phrase
occur only eight times in the Hebrew Bible and in light of the proximity of Micah and
Habakkuk to one another, the parallel must be an instance of intertextual linkage between
the two books. Which instance can claim priority? How does the relationship inform a
reading of Micah?

In effect, Mie 1:2 announces the advent of the "day of calamity" Habakkuk had confi-
dently petitioned. Micah proclaims that YHWH is poised to leave "his holy temple," no
longer content from there to survey the injustice rampant in the world. This proclamation
calls attention to an important hermeneutical principle regarding prophetic literature. It is
absolutely necessary to distinguish clearly between the preaching of the prophet Micah, to
which readers of the book of Micah have no direct access, and the literary product, the book,
associated with the prophet. An interpreter interested primarily in reconstructing the form
and setting of the prophet's preaching might well stumble over the universal eschatology
implicit in Mie 1:2 and over its relationship to Hab 2:20. Did Micah proclaim an imminent,
world-wide judgment? How could Micah anticipate Habakkuk by more than a century?

The key is to recognize that Mie 1:2 functions on the level of the chronology of the book
of Micah, not of a reconstructed program of prophetic preaching. The perspective of the
book of Micah, that is, the perspective of the final redactors of the book encompasses the
exile and beyond (Mie 4-7). Furthermore, the final redactors of Micah will have been con-
temporaries of the redactors of Habakkuk, if indeed not identical with them. These redac-
tors produced books in and for settings generations later than the historical activity of the
prophets associated with the books. Their intentions will have been to communicate signifi-
cance to their readership, not merely to preserve verbatim records of the prophets' words.

In the chronology of the booh of Micah and Habakkuk, the Assyrian and Babylonian
crises lie in the past. Micah's warnings proved crucial. In fact, in the period that produced
the final form of Micah and the Book of the Twelve, the people of Israel find themselves
164 Interpretation APRIL 2 0 0 7

living as a minority in exile or as a conquered population at home. The questions facing the
readers of these books have to do with the need to understand the past and to find a way
into the future. Read together, Mie 1:2 and Hab 2:20 suggest that Israel/Judah's sufferings at
the hands of the Assyrians/Babylonians were only a preamble to the coming universal judg-
ment in which all wrongs will be righted—including, but not limited to, imbalances in the
relationships between nations. Micah 7:7, which closely parallels Hab 3:18 in syntax and
vocabulary, solidifies this chronological system. The book of Habakkuk concludes with an
affirmation that, although the circumstances that motivated the complaints of earlier chap-
ters (Babylonian hegemony) remain unchanged, the prophet will maintain confidence that
YHWH will vindicate his people. Micah 7:7 expresses the same confidence in the face of
circumstances of internal injustice before the book turns in its final sections to the topic of
deliverance from external enemies.

OPEN OPTIONS

Because of the obvious advantage in being able to discern authentic prophetic voices,
the Bible at several points suggests criteria. Deuteronomy 13 proposes two tests—a true
prophet's message will come true and a prophet who stands outside Yahwistic tradition is by
definition false—that prove to be insufficient. In some cases, by the time a prophet's message
can be empirically verified, it will be too late to respond. In many cases, such as that involving
Jeremiah's opponent, Hananiah, who spoke in YHWH's name and appealed, apparently, to
Israel's authentic election traditions, false prophets standfirmlyin the Orthodox mainstream.
Jeremiah 26-28 develop supplementary criteria, therefore; invoking the case of Micah, whose
prophecy did not come true in his own lifetime, the people argue that if warnings such as
Micah's, Jeremiah's, and one might add Jonah's, motivate repentance, they have ironically
fulfilled their purpose by averting the fulfillment of their predictions. In his contest with
Hananiah, Jeremiah refines the deuteronomic criterion of empirical verification to apply it
primarily to prophets of peace. A prophet whose warnings against misbehavior motivate
change and thus nullify the grounds for the fulfillment of his prediction is a true prophet;
conversely, a prophet who sounds the "all is well" in the face of catastrophe has clearly mis-
understood circumstances and misappropriated tradition. His was a hermeneutical error.

Even in their revised form, these criteria do not apply universally to the materials col-
lected in the prophetic corpus. The assurances issued by Isaiah of Jerusalem that Judah
would survive the Syro-Ephraimitic Crisis and the Assyrian Crises intact proved true, in the
THE B O O K OF THE TWELVE Interpretation 165

short term. Micah's more sober message concerning Zion's fate proved ultimately true.
Later, Deutero-Isaiah announced an imminent and wondrous new exodus, glad tidings for
Lady Jerusalem and her children. As Isa 56-66 bears evidence, the anonymous prophet's
vision went unfulfilled owing, the book argues (59:1-2), to the people's sinful unwillingness
to accept the opportunity offered them. A prophet of peace has preached an unfulfilled
message.21 Micah, Isaiah of Jerusalem (Isa 1-39), Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 40-55) and Isa 56-66
all appear in the prophetic corpus, as do Jonah, Amos, Nahum, and Zephaniah.

It must be concluded, then, that the Book of the Twelve, like the prophetic corpus as a
whole, constructs a much more sophisticated concept of prophecy and its interpretation than
the simplistic true/false dichotomy permits. From the perspective of the literary collection,
edited to serve as authoritative prophetic material for a generation far-removed from the
Assyrian crisis and presumably for generations to come, Micah and Isaiah of Jerusalem do
not primarily represent prophets whose messages came true, but authentic prophetic alter-
natives for subsequent generations, as well. Just as Jonah's word of warning hung over
Nineveh well past the events recorded in the book bearing his name, Hosea's word about
knowledge of YHWH, Amos' admonitions concerning the treatment of the poor, and Joel's
hope for a day when all the people of God would prophesy are all contingent, awaiting ful-
fillment under the proper circumstances. As Zechariah put it, "Your fathers, where are they?
And the prophets, do they live for ever? But my words and my statutes, which I command-
ed my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers?" (Zech 1:5-6 RSV; cf.
7:7-14 and Zeph 3:8, "'Therefore wait for me,' says YHWH...").

In this regard, the puzzling book of Jonah provides a key to the theology of prophecy
in the Twelve. As Ludwig Schmidt has observed, Jonah functions as something of a didactic
narrative dealing with the issues of the contingency of prophecy as outlined, for example,
in Jer 18.22 In the judgment of Jer 18 and of Jonah, authentic prophecy cannot be recognized
by whether it accurately predicts actual events. Instead, its authenticity depends upon whether
it correctly outlines a contingency that is appropriate to current realities. If a nation contin-
ues in its evil, Jer 18 has God say, the outcome will likely be negative, if a nation repents,
God will relent, and so on through all the possible permutations. Prophecy is true, then, in
the view of the editors of the prophetic corpus, because it accurately states God's position
toward a typical circumstance. Whether it comes to pass in a given moment has no bearing
on its lasting truth. It remains true even when the circumstances that prompted its original
delivery change. It remains in force should similar circumstances arise later.

21
"Prophecies of destruction are contingent upon the human response to them. Such prophecies may therefore
be annulled without prejudice to the prophets who pronounced them. Promises of good fortune, on the other
hand, are invariably fulfilled," Alan Cooper, "In Praise of Divine Caprice: The Significance of the Book of Jonah,"
in Among the Prophets (ed. Phillip R. Davies and David J. A. Clines; Sheffield: Sheffield, 1993), 146, n. 3.
22
Ludwig Schmidt, "De Deo": Studien zur Literarkritik und Theologie des Buches fona, des Gesprächs zwischen
Abraham und Jahwe in Gen 18:22jf. und von Hi 1 (BZAW 143; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1976), 33-47; contra
Thomas M. Bolin ('"Should I Not Also Pity Nineveh?' Divine Freedom in the Book of Jonah," JSOT 67 [ 1995] : 110,
119).
166 Interpretation APRIL 2007

The evidence suggests that editors of the prophetic corpus, including especially the
Book of the Twelve, selected material to reflect a wide variety of views on specific circum-
stances, presumably so that future readers would have on hand material that applies in
some fashion to virtually every conceivable contingency. It further suggests that they fre-
quently extrapolated and extended this authoritative material to create new prophecy, in
effect, accommodating the fixed tradition to new circumstances or new questions. One
effect of this process of selection and extension is a view of canonical prophecy that places a
high premium on the hermeneutical skills of selection (which element of the authoritative
tradition applies to the situation at hand?) and interpretation (how does it apply?), skills
that mirror the process that produced the prophetic corpus in thefirstplace. The extant
corpus can meet all the community's needs for prophecy, given the availability of a skilled
interpreter.