The Book of Obadiah contains a number of verbal parallels to another prophecy against Edom which appears in Jeremiah xlix. 7-22. Most critics have regarded this prophecy of Jeremiah as genuine, and have assigned it to the year 604 B.C. The question is whether Obadiah or Jeremiah is the earlier. Hitzig and Vatke[457] answered in favour of Jeremiah; and as the Book of Obadiah also contains a description of Edom’s conduct in the day of Jerusalem’s overthrow by Nebuchadrezzar, in 586, they brought the whole book down to post-exilic times. Very forcible arguments, however, have been offered for Obadiah’s priority.[458] Upon this priority, as well as on the facts that Joel, whom they take to be early, quotes from Obadiah, and that Obadiah’s book occurs among the first six—presumably the pre-exilic members—of the Twelve, a number of scholars have assigned all of it to an early period in Israel’s history. Some fix upon the reign of Jehoshaphat, when Judah was invaded by Edom and his allies Moab and Ammon, but saved from disaster through Moab and Ammon turning upon the Edomites and slaughtering them.[459] To this they refer the phrase in Obadiah 9, _the men of thy covenant have betrayed thee_. Others place the whole book in the reign of Joram of Judah (849—842 B.C.), when, according to the Chronicles,[460] Judah was invaded and Jerusalem partly sacked by Philistines and Arabs.[461] But in the story of this invasion, there is no mention of Edomites, and the argument which is drawn from Joel’s quotation of Obadiah fails if Joel, as we shall see, be of late date. With greater prudence Pusey declines to fix a period. The supporters of a pre-exilic origin for the _whole_ Book of Obadiah have to explain vv. 11-14, which appear to reflect Edom’s conduct at the sack of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar in 586, and they do so in two ways. Pusey takes the verses as predictive of Nebuchadrezzar’s siege. Orelli and others believe that they suit better the conquest and plunder of the city in the time of Jehoram. But, as Calvin has said, “they seem to be mistaken who think that Obadiah lived before the time of Isaiah.”