Leslie Allen is a veteran commentator who has contributed commentaries in several important series. Here in the Old Testament Library (OTL) Allen has replaced an earlier weak volume in the series with this widely-recognized contribution on the Book of Jeremiah. Having used some of his other commentaries, I found here the same quality of efforts as I saw in earlier projects. The book is even considered more conservative than several in this series.

After a nice bibliography, Mr. Allen begins a rather brief Introduction for this commentary. I appreciated his sharing his six guiding principles of approach to this commentary. I wish all commentators would so succinctly tell us up front the approach they’re going to take. He gets into translation and text and then quickly moves to the genre. He feels that “oracles of disaster constitute a backbone for the book”. He discusses the quotation formulas that you will encounter in Jeremiah. He barely addresses style before he jumps into literary development. Though I could not agree with his conclusions about the LXX and MT, he did carefully state his reasons. His comments on structure were helpful, and then he ends the Introduction with a discussion of purpose in the complex Book of Jeremiah. He remarks that the “purposeful trajectory of overriding grace that stretches over the book like a rainbow” is key.

The commentary was superior to the Introduction. In each passage, he gave the text with exegetical notes, followed by a paragraph on the passage as a whole, and then with more comments on individual verses. Though I could not always agree with his conclusions, you could tell that Mr. Allen was a season scholar with a full grasp of all the issues.

I found this book to be one of the more important in the OTL series, and as I said before, more conservative than some of them. Anyone trying to secure the most important commentaries on Jeremiah for a first-class library, simply must add this volume. I recommend it.

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.

This volume by Brevard Childs replaced three volumes by Otto Kaiser and Claus Westermann in the popular Old Testament Library (OTL) series. It was written in the twilight of his career after his highly-regarded commentary on the Book of Exodus in the same series. Most reviews I’ve seen feel Mr. Childs is the best commentator on Isaiah that we have from the critical camp. After reviewing this book myself, I can see how that came to be believed by many.

In what seems to be a unique approach, Mr. Childs gives an introduction to the Book of Isaiah as a whole, followed by the introduction to Isaiah 1-39. Then he gives an introduction to Isaiah 1-12. That’s followed by commentary on that section and in chapter 16 we have an introduction to Isaiah 13-23. That pattern is continued with separate introductions to Isaiah 24-27, 28-35, 36-39, 40-55, and 56-66 followed by commentary on that section. I’m used to seeing Isaiah chopped in either two or three parts by the critical side, but this was rather unique. Don’t worry, though, following the commentary is still straightforward.

Mr. Childs did not stick to a canonical approach as much as he did in his commentary on Exodus, and gets more into sources and other redactional critical ideas. In his introduction to the whole book, he discusses the approach that he will take. More than in many commentaries I’ve read, I think it’s highly important that you allow him to explain for himself the track he will follow.

In the commentary itself, you will find much of what you might have come to expect with Mr. Childs. There’s still redactional discussions, but real exegetical help and textual insights abound throughout. The commentary is not as long as you might expect for a book the scope of Isaiah, but it still offers the reflections of a season scholar at the end of his career.

We can’t deny that this volume is an important one on the Book of Isaiah today. Though I follow a more conservative path than Mr. Childs does, I still find value in this book and look forward to interacting with him in future studies I do in the Book of Isaiah. It’s worth checking out.

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.

This volume is the first of a planned two-volume set covering the Books of Samuel. It’s part of the highly respected New International Commentary on the Old Testament (NICOT) series published by Eerdmans. This series never had a volume on the Books of Samuel until this volume by scholar David Toshio Tsumura came along and we eagerly await the volume on II Samuel. Though some reviews I’ve read do not give this volume as high marks as others in the series, my own review finds this volume to be underrated.

Even those who are slightly critical of it must confess that Mr. Tsumura  is expert on philological and grammatical matters. Scholarly students will especially appreciate its depth in the different critical approaches all the way down to the current hot topic of discourse analysis. Though he agrees with some things in critical areas that I could not, his approach would be considered quite conservative by most standards.

His Introduction begins with a basic explanation of the title of the book and then launches into a discussion of the text itself. He is quite positive about the value of the Masoretic text and compares it to the LXX and Dead Sea Scrolls. He confesses that we cannot know who wrote the books of Samuel since Samuel died in I Samuel. Though he agrees with more than I could, he still finds many of the theories of redaction in the text to be based on questionable assumptions. He digs deep into the historicity of the Books of Samuel and feels confident about most of it. He gives good background material on the Philistines, the Canaanites and all their influence including the gods of the area, and the prevalence of necromancy.

From there he goes into grammar/syntax and discourse analysis and shows us his specialty. He even addresses the poetry that can be found in the Books of Samuel. The section on literary structure and themes was well done as was the brief section on the theology of Samuel. The introduction ends with a detailed outline and a select detailed bibliography.

The commentary proper is quite full and a real help to those studying this book. There is more of an emphasis on philological matters than theology or application, but as I said before, the book is better than some people give it credit for being. It actually stands up well with other volumes in the NICOT series and I recommend it.

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.