Is Obadiah 15-21 About the Worldwide Tribulation?

Dr. Couch, Obadiah 15-21 seems to be about the worldwide tribulation and the coming kingdom. Am I right? 

 

    You are right on! This section starts out mentioning the great tribulation, the "Day of the Lord" that will fall upon "all the nations" (v. 15a). As the nations have been sinful so in like manner a retribution will fall upon them (v. 15b). As the nations have abused God’s holy mountain (Mount Zion in Jerusalem) by being drunk with lust over occupying and subverting it, so will they drink of God’s wrath and perish (v. 16).

    Mount Zion (in Jerusalem) will become a place of escape and a holy site when the Jews, a remnant of all of the children of Jacob, have complete control of it. (This may tell you who will end up finally with occupying that mountain!)

God will use "the house of Jacob" (descendants of all the tribes of Israel) as a judgment fire on the Arabic peoples surrounding the Holy Land. The children of Esau will become stubble, be consumed with fire, "So that there will be no survivor of the house of Esau" (v. 18).

    Besides the coming of Jesus the Messiah, the Deliverer, there will be additional warriors who deliver the Jewish people at the end of the tribulation. Obadiah closes with this idea and writes: "The deliverers will ascend Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Esau, and the kingdom will be the Lord’s" (v. 21). On this verse Unger writes:

   Obadiah concluded, as did so many of the Hebrew prophets, with a strong Messianic note centering on the promise of future blessing of regathered and restored Israel in the Kingdom promised to David (2 Sam. 7:8-15), a glorious theme that dominates Old Testament prophecy. 

Thanks for asking.

Dr. Mal Couch