Prophet Obadiah

Obadiah is the name of one of the twelve minor prophets, who left the shortest book of the Old Testament, a single chapter, directed against Edom. Church tradition, as in the Life of the prophets, identifies him with the Obadiah who was the steward of King Ahab in the 9th century BC and who, when Queen Jezebel was killing the Lord's prophets, hid a hundred of them in two caves and fed them with bread and water (1 Kings 18).

The tradition adds that he later left the royal service and followed the prophet Elijah, and that he received the gift of prophecy. Many modern scholars doubt this identification: the book itself gives no date, and most of them read it as written after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, since it speaks of Edom's behaviour on that day.