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.

This commentary on the little-known books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah has been influential since it was written and is one of the better volumes in the Old Testament Library (OTL) series. Mr. J. J. M. Roberts has given us a probing volume here. Though this volume is not as conservative as my personal beliefs, I’ve noticed other influential conservative scholars speak highly of this book. You might say, that this book is the best we have from that side of scholarship.

The General Introduction opens with a discussion on how to read a prophetic book. Mr. Roberts unique perspective is that looking at prophecy in terms of biblical books is not as effective as looking at individual oracles. I was surprised to read that Mr. Roberts felt that “the intricate connections discovered in such redactional analyses tend to be artificial, contrived, and obvious only to the critic proposing the analysis”. To that statement I give a hearty amen. As he explains, there’s too little evidence to describe the redactional process or what was behind it.

After a select bibliography on all three books, he launches into approaching each of the three books separately including giving an Introduction to each book. In each case, he gives some basic background, an outline, a discussion of the date (his conclusions here are pretty conservative after all), and a discussion of the prophet and his message. Then he gives commentary that includes much textual help and some interesting theology. With that commentary, he gives his own translation followed by even more detailed textual notes.

At around 225 pages, Mr. Roberts has struck the right balance between brevity and detail. I agree with others who say they have found this commentary rich. I have most of the major commentaries on these books of the Bible and I assure you I’ll be consulting this book each time I study these three obscure prophets.

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.

Daniel Estes, a fine scholar on the poetry of the Old Testament, contributes this volume in the celebrated New Studies in Biblical Theology (NSBT) series by IVP and edited by D. A. Carson. This monograph considers Proverbs 1-9 for what it tells us about teaching and learning.

He feels that the obvious pursuit in Proverbs is one of education or instruction. The teacher speaks to the student throughout. Though there appears to be a random order in our collection of Proverbs, he see seven pedagogical categories that holds them together. These seven are worldview, values, goals, curriculum, instruction, teacher, and learner.

He encourages us to notice “hear my son”. He covers a few more broad issues in the introduction. In chapter 1 he uncovers the worldview of Proverbs 1-9 and explains the assumptions of it. He says it’s evident that it “implies a prior faith commitment.” Further, in biblical wisdom there’s no differentiation between the sacred and the profane. From there, Mr. Estes traces out the theological points at work.

The book hits its stride in chapters 2 and 3 when the values and goals for education are explained. It was in these two chapters that I learned the most and felt he made the strongest case for his premise. Chapters 4-7 cover his other pedagogical categories in turn. Along the way many key words and verses are brought to light.

Though it only covers 9 chapters, this book is an excellent resource for studying Proverbs. It certainly lives up to the lofty status of this series.

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.