There is no mention in the book either of Assyria or of Babylonia.[467] The allies who have betrayed Edom (ver. 7) are therefore probably those Arabian tribes who surrounded it and were its frequent confederates.[468] They are described as _sending_ Edom _to the border_ (_ib._). Wellhausen thinks that this can only refer to the great northward movement of Arabs which began to press upon the fertile lands to the south-east of Israel during the time of the Captivity. Ezekiel[469] prophesies that Ammon and Moab will disappear before the Arabs, and we know that by the year 312 the latter were firmly settled in the territories of Edom.[470] Shortly before this the Hagarenes appear in Chronicles, and Se’ir is called by the Arabic name Gebal,[471] while as early as the fifth century “Malachi”[472] records the desolation of Edom’s territory by the _jackals of the wilderness_, and the expulsion of the Edomites, who will not return. The Edomites were pushed up into the Negeb of Israel, and occupied the territory round, and to the south of, Hebron till their conquest by John Hyrcanus about 130; even after that it was called Idumæa.[473] Wellhausen would assign Obadiah 1-7 to the same stage of this movement as is reflected in “Malachi” i. 1-5; and, apart from certain parentheses, would therefore take the whole of Obadiah as a unity from the end of the fifth century before Christ. In that case Giesebrecht argues that the parallel prophecy, Jeremiah xlix. 7-22, must be reckoned as one of the passages of the Book of Jeremiah in which post-exilic additions have been inserted.[474]