I wish other scholarly books read like this one. It could make a prototype for future scholarly monographs. For one thing, he loved to read the New Testament back into these five wonderful Old Testament books. These five books – Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther – became the five short Old Testament books that were sung in the great festivals of Israel. Though they are not together in our Bibles, it’s still a great idea to look at them together. Mr. Webb has hit a home run and packed an incredible amount of material in 150 pages.

Mr. Webb describes these books as sitting on the edge of the canon because they had more trouble with acceptance than any in the Old Testament. In the chapter on each of the five books he crams in much material like you might find in an introduction in a commentary, but the depth can’t hide the warm spiritual truth he uncovers for Christians.

He broke down the Song of Solomon in an incredible way. He describes the incredible statement it makes about love between a man and a woman in a tasteful way. He may not see it as a picture of the love of Christ for his church as much as I do, but he does finally conclude that there’s something of the love of God in it.

Without getting bogged down as I’ve seen so many scholars do, he broke down the episodes of the book of Ruth. He beautifully brought out the theology to be found in this amazing little book. He also discussed Ruth as salvation history, which many scholars will no longer do.

He sets the scene of suffering in the book of Lamentations and makes sense of its structure. Again, the theology was spot on. I may not have agreed with all his conclusions on Ecclesiastes, but I was intrigued by what he had to say. In the chapter on Esther he addressed the charge that it’s a secular book. He did see Esther and Mordecai as more conflicted characters than Bible characters like, say, Daniel. Again, he provided us with many avenues of study.

I enjoyed this book. I sat down and read it straight through in about two hours. I don’t see how anyone could read it without benefit. It’s an awesome book.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.