Think of all the people you know that see Numbers as their favorite book in scripture. In that blank space, I should find a nice opportunity to divert your attention to this review. Baker now has a second book of the Pentateuch covered in this newly emerging series. Clearly, this is going to be a major series.

I am not familiar with Mark Awabdy. It didn’t take me long to realize that he has a very distinct writing style for these types of works. In fact, it is almost as if the tone even was different. I’ll be curious to find out later if he strikes other people besides me in that same way.

Outside of style, he is clearly an accomplished scholar. He does write a tad bit more in a scholarly style than is my preference, but he has a lot of depth and shares a lot of information. In my view, he is solid on most fronts, whether that be exegesis or structural analysis of the text or even theology. On the negative side, he’s more accommodating to redaction criticism than I am comfortable to see. There’s a lot more to this book than that, but it is still distinctly noticeable to me. It’s like having a pretty good dish and adding the wrong spice. Were you to agree with his approach to redaction criticism this might be one of your favorite commentaries.

The introduction has a lot to ponder. The concentric rings of genre shown on page 11 do not seem particularly plausible to me while his overall ideas of structure were on target. As you might expect, I could not get on with his section entitled “composition” at all. Getting past that discussion will lead you to some pretty good theology.

When you get into the commentary proper, the trends of the introduction are still plainly seen. His reaction criticism is his escape hatch to get away from the question of the historical validity of the numbers given in this book. Look at, for example, his commentary on 1:44-54. That analysis won’t float for me.

Still, the mixture of exegesis and theology mitigate some of the criticism and renders this volume an asset. I would not make it my first choice on the book of Numbers, but it is still a nice book to have, and can teach you much. Mark my word, this is going to be a major series, and we are going to want to have all of its volumes.

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.