s longtime readers of Back of the Bible know, the books making up the ass-end of the Old Testament stick so closely to formula they make A-Team reruns look staggering in their thematic variety. You can pretty much choose any one at random and get some variation on the following plot:

"Hi, my name's _________, and I'll be your prophet this evening!"

"Did you know God loves you? He does! He's also furious with you!"

[Long, damning vitriol about your unfaithfulness to God]

[Graphic, slightly erotic description of your murder at the hands of same]

[Clumsy allegory involving figs, adders, locusts, hookers, etc.]

"But if you act now, you'll not only earn the Lord's forgiveness... you'll get this handsome set of steak knives! Call 1-800-REPENTANCE! Don't wait!"

And that's pretty much the last twelve books of the Bible. The problem here isn't the plot—it's a timeworn classic—but rather brevity; or more specifically, that there isn’t any. The Book of Zephaniah manages to stretch "God's angry" to about 1600 words, for instance—a reader could walk away from it with the ability to describe the reasons for the Lord's displeasure, how many sausages He had for breakfast, and the cross-stitching pattern on His sandals during the killing. I don’t know what sort of rates the Lord was offering his freelance prophets. Clearly, however, he was paying by the word.

The Book of Obadiah is the first book of the Back of the Bible and, thankfully, also the shortest. All the classic themes Bible fans have come to know and love are here—God’s love, God’s forgiveness, God’s lavishly vivid promises of imminent slaughter—but at a fraction of the length of the prophets to follow. Obadiah’s successors may have expanded the plotlines and added some character development—but at the end of the day we can credit Obadiah for setting the Gold Standard of what the voice of God sounds like: Thoroughly, rage-brimmingly insane.

One key difference between the Book of Obadiah and subsequent BotB books, however, is the target of God’s anger, which, in a surprising twist, isn’t the people of Judea (usually the go-to humans for the Lord's fury). No, this time it’s the nearby town of Edom that's managed to steam God’s potatoes, the poor hapless schmucks.

Why was Edom in the hotseat? Read on for the entire tedious, confusing story!

The Ninth Century B.C. was by anyone's estimation a hundred-year span to watch. In Phocaea, a young firebrand named Homer managed to overcome the handicap of whether or not he existed to pen both The Iliad and The Odyssey, two instant classics that screamed for the future casting of Brad Pitt. The people of the Netherlands, meanwhile, were discovering how useful iron could be if they heated it, proudly entering the Iron Age a mere five hundreds years after Asia, which by this time was building spaceships capable of intergalactic space travel. Even Dido paused long enough in her recording sessions to found the maritime trading city of Carthage—ostensibly to forward the cause of women’s rights, but in reality because she was sick of paying so much for good seafood.

The Ninth Century, B.C., then: By all accounts a bustling and ambitious time. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that the people of Judah were taking advantage of this properity, as always, by getting the absolute shit invaded out of them while starving to death.

Full props for Judah's good times can be given to its ruler, King Jehoram—a man noteworthy for, if for nothing else, not having a single nice thing said about him in all of recorded history. Jehoram inherited the Kingdom of Judah from Jehoshaphat (of jumpin' fame), who reigned for twenty-five years, ushered in an unprecedented era of prosperity and died, beloved and treasured, of ripe old age. Eager to live up to his father's legacy, Jehoram started his reign on a high note by going on a killing spree.

His first order of business was giving his family and friends the gift that keeps on giving—multiple stab-wounds—by executing his six brothers and large numbers of high-ranking officials, in case one of them started eyeballing the throne and thinking it'd look nice with a new ass-groove in it. Around this time, Jehoram also chose to "reject the Lord and practice evil," according to various Biblical sources. With such a strong foundation of mass murder, idolaty and commitment to evil in place, you'd be correct in assuming that Jehoram had a smooth, crisis-free ride as King of Judah.

Word soon got around that Jehoram was cartoonishly evil—or, as he was described at the time, "Lex Luthor-esque." Multiple rebellions among Judah's vassal cities erupted. The city of Moab was the first to declare their independence—explaining that, in the interests of all parties, it'd maybe be for the best if the Kingdom of Judah went and fucked itself sideways.

Jehoram was pissed. In his first act as King he secured the aid of nearby vassal city Edom and set out across the desert, aiming to put a Jeroham-sized bootprint in Moab's sass-talking haunches. Showcasing the crack military skills that put him in all the glossy textbooks, Jeroham's army ran out of water enroute to Moab, without ever having glimpsed the opposing army. (Looking to save face with the troops, Jehoram blamed God for his abysmal planning—a move Old Testament fans will instantly recognize, given the Lord's track record with weathering slander, as a staggeringly unwise one.)

Thanks to some quick thinking on Edom's part, the rebellion was stamped out and slavery restored. Jeroham, completely dehydrated and beet-red with humiliation, celebrated the victory by plugging up Moab's wells and burning their fields to ashes before returning tiumphantly home. (Dear History: If you remember Jehoram for one thing besides his prowess as a military tactician, please note his graciousness in victory.)

History fails to record a pouty, sunburned Jehoram taking a water-parched bowel movement in Moab's town square; however, if we had a time machine, I'm thinking we'd probably have gotten a front row seat for that.

The next eight years would have Jehoram making boneheaded play after boneheaded play, blaming God at every turn for his own stumbling incompetence.

More and more vassal cities rebelled as word got around concerning Jehoram's "fucktardedness" (an ancient Hebrew word meaning 'to have succulent figs for brains'). Even Jehoram's former ally, Edom, cut ties with the dumb clod. Also, because he was a complete idiot, Jehoram started up an Israel-wide "Worship a Golden Calf" campaign around this time, further ingratiating himself into the Lord's inner circle.

By this point, the Lord was getting understandably sick and fucking tired of all the bad press he'd gotten taking the heat for Jeroham's ability to run headfirst into every wall he came across. Proving that it doesn't pay to badmouth the omnipotent, God afflicted the shit-stupid bastard with the most painful bowel disease available at the time. So crippling was the disease, in fact, that Jehoram had to have his bowels removed.

Removed. Keep in mind that even in a contemporary setting, with 21st century advances in medicine and surgery, this would be an excruciatingly painful procedure with a high casualty rate. Now remember that Jeroham underwent surgery 2,750 years ago, when people worshipped anything shiny and cut off your hands if you cooked the wrong brand of dirt in front of them. Now try and get your head around an 800 B.C. procedure culminating in you on one side of the room and your intestines on the other.

Jehoram died in agony soon after (enormous surprise)— despised by his people, with his lands facing enemies on every front. On his deathbed in 847 B.C., he had the solace that his kingdom was being simultaneously razed to the ground by the Philistines, the Arabians and the Cushites, who abducted Jehoram's wives and all his children during their pillage. Jehoram was denied a king's funeral, and was buried in a commoner's grave.

Consider this the next time you're in a poopy mood because you're late for work and you'll probably feel better about the traffic.

All this lengthy backstory, assuming you didn't skip over it, should give you some perspective about the city of Edom. The Edomites had revolted against Judah shortly before it folded like a lawn chair and Jehoram got buried out behind a waffle house. News soon reached them that Judah'd gotten the desert warfare equivelant of a pantsing and a shove into the girl's bathroom. Edom responded by partying like it was 1 B.C., throwing the wickedest hot oil 'n' backrubs fuck-party available. I don't want to put words in the Edomites' mouths here, but I'll bet they even had ribs. (In my experience, it's not really celebrating unless there's ribs involved.) Groups of Edomites even snuck into the Judah after the invasion, drunk off their asses and mooning nearby statues, stealing everything that hadn't already been taken by the invading armies (some cracked bowls; a few three-legged horses; all the fat ugly virgins; etc.). Adding insult to injury, Edom even snagged all the sweet trade routes previously belonging to Judah.

Assholes.

Obadiah was already pretty famous before he’d written prophecy one, making his presence here a bit of a celebrity coup for God. He'd made a name for himself as a high-ranking official in the household of King Ahab, who ruled Israel at the time. Ahab's wife Jezebel was—according to the annals of history—a bit of a ball-busting lunatic whore with a hate-on for God. She spent most of her free time getting her subjects to reject God and worship false idols instead, offering further incentives by killing absolutely everyone who didn't. Nice girl. Possibly some father issues there.

After she put out a hit on a hundred of God's prophets, Obadiah risked his own life by hiding them in a cave until Jezebel'd chilled out. The Bible isn't clear how the hell Obadiah managed to feed a hundred cave-dwelling prophets. My guess? Lunchables.

Evidently a talent scout was in the audience at the time, as Obadiah got sent up to the big leagues soon after. His first writing assignment? Write a scathing indictment of Edom's transgressions against the people of Judah while they were being attacked, pillaged and enslaved. The transgressions of the actual countries that, you know, attacked, pillaged and enslaved the people of Judah were, apparently, not worth God's time to bring up. Obadiah—an Edomite himself, according to the Bible (an inherently unbiased source)— took pen to papyrus condemning Edom for celebrating Judah's fall.

"We expect that sort of thing from the Cushites, Edom. But you? That's just—I am so disappointed in you right now. We want you to think long and hard about what you've done, and don't come out of your room 'till you're able to use your big people voice. Don't you give me that look, mister! I saw that!"

A pretty obvious question one could raise from all this nonsense is: If King Jehoram was such a loopy basketcase, and—by the Bible's own admission— managed to run Judah into the ground in a brief eight-year timespan through his dedication to all things depraved and evil... Well, then how the hell is any of this Edom's fault? And why devote an entire book of the Bible chastising them?

The answer: The people of Judah really really hated the people of Edom, and vice versa. The whole Jehoram affair, as it turns out, was just the latest incident in one of the longest-standing feuds in Bible history—a feud that started thousands of years before, with two brothers named Jacob and Esau. In order to understand the convoluted mess that is The Book of Obadiah, we'll need a Stan Lee-like callback to a previous issue of The Bible, which I've provided below:

In issue #344 of Uncanny Bible Stories ("Enter... God's Wrath!"), we are introduced to athletic hunter Esau and his effeminate younger brother Jacob. Esau spends his time providing for the family—hunting wild buffalo, chopping wood and tending to the crops. Jacob, conversely, hangs around the hut all day playing cribbage with mom, braiding her hair and gossiping about which eligible bachelors from neighboring tribes have gotten married recently. Father Isaac loves Esau more. Mother Rebecca has a soft spot for Jacob.

Esau, being the eldest son—and, though it's never overtly mentioned, the only son on the premises not spending his days catnapping and making his skin more supple through the application of mud and aloe—is due to receive his birthright of taking over the family. (It's a little vague what a blessing like this entails, but given the scarcity of impregnable females and relatively low population, I invite you to come to your own smutty, upsetting conclusions.)

Jacob covets Esau's birthright, convinced that his ability to bring the hut together with tasteful throwrugs and wildflower bouquets makes him the obvious choice to lead the clan. His mother agrees (come to your own smutty upsetting conclusions), and together they concoct a plan to cheat Esau out of his birthright.

Esau returns the next afternoon, hungry and exhausted from a day spent hunting. Jacob welcomes his brother with a steaming bowl of lentil stew. Esau makes a grab for the bowl, but Jacob snags it back suddenly. "First, give me your birthright," he says.

"It's hot and I'm starving, fag," Esau growls. "Give me the fucking stew before I make you eat your own asshole."

"Say you'll give me your birthright first," prods Jacob.

"Yeah, whatever," agrees Esau dismissively, grabbing the bowl from his brother and wolfing it down in one gulp.

Years later, father Isaac has grown old and blind. Sensing he's long due for a dirt nap, he calls for his son Esau so that he can give him his blessing to take over the family. Wife Rebecca, having plotted with her effeminate, mincing, showtune-singing son for years now, calls Jacob instead. Jacob, being essentially hairless, has dressed up in sheepskin to make himself seem hairy, so as to better fool Isaac into thinking he's Esau.

As a result of their years of scheming, Rebecca and Jacob manage to fool a helpless blind man and rob a rightful heir of his birthright. Once Esau finds out what they've done, he rushes to his father Isaac's side. Isaac, realizing that his wife and child have betrayed him, dies weeping. Esau wails in mourning for his father and vows to kill the deceitful Jacob. Hearing his brother's anguished screams, Jacob sprints cowardly into the night. The end.

Okay. Are you ready for this? You're gonna love this. Here's God's take on the whole nasty business: "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." (Romans 9:15)

Yep. That's right. According to the Bible, Jacob—the callow, shiftless brother who tricked his blind, helpless father into betraying his brother—is the hero of this story; and Esau—who spent his life tirelessly providing for his family and was tricked out of his birthright by Jacob—is the bad guy. Why? Because of his careless disregard for God's blessing, and for his angry vow on his father's deathbed to kill his brother.

The people of Judah, by the way, are the descendents of Jacob; and the people of Edom are the descendents of Esau. This is why Obadiah fills up a book threatening their deaths at the hand of God: They have betrayed the people of Judah (who had enslaved them), just like Esau had betrayed Jacob (by threatening to murder him for ruining his life). Judah, like Jacob himself, is essentially blameless here. They're the Chosen People of God.

Welcome to Bible Logic.

It's okay to lie, cheat, enslave, steal, actively plot against family members, deceive the blind, and dishonor your father, apparently. Just don't ever say something dismissive about your birthright to someone when you're really hungry. Because that's bad.

"Thou art greatly despised." (Obadiah 1:2)

Above: Esau and Jacob embrace with the celebration of brotherhood. Note the closed eyes, Esau's hand grabbing downward, and Jacob's tender massaging of Esau's breast. Not shown: Jacob about to nestle his head into Esau's chest, kick up his right leg slightly and entwine his fingers playfully in his brother's chest hair.

Above: Moments later, presumably. I'll leave you to fill in the blanks on this one.

Above: Isaac blesses his son Jacob with the birthright of property. For reasons Isaac is not inclined to share, he feels this is a blessing best served up while nude.

Above: More brotherhood celebration from Esau and Jacob, a procedure that looks to involve Jacob on his knees, suckling on his brother's beard in public. Note the confused expression on the soldier (upper left) and the woman shielding her children from the display (right).

Above Left: White-hot open-mouthed brother-on-brother French kissing.
Above Right: Profoundly embarrassed onlookers.