Ezra and Nehemiah (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries | TOTC)
Overview
"The chequered story of the Kings, a matter of nearly five centuries, had ended disastrously in 587 BC with the sack of Jerusalem, the fall of the monarchy and the removal to Babylonia of all that made Judah politically viable. It was a death to make way for a rebirth." So begins Derek Kidner's commentary on the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which chart the Jews' return from exile to Jerusalem and the beginnings of that rebirth. As the drama unfolds, above all and through all we see the good hand of God at work.
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Top Highlights
“The Christian, while he has been shown a better answer to evil, can learn from Nehemiah to look to God, not to himself, for vindication (he was silent under the taunts), and not for a moment to accept the world’s low estimate of his calling.” (Page 99)
“In short, what we see in Ezra-Nehemiah is an Israel cut down almost to the roots, but drawing new vitality from its neglected source of nourishment in the Mosaic law and already showing signs, by its new concern for purity, of growing into the Judaism which we meet, both for better and for worse, in the New Testament.” (Page 27)
“He is a model reformer in that what he taught he had first lived, and what he lived he had first made sure of in the Scriptures. With study, conduct and teaching put deliberately in this right order, each of these was able to function properly at its best: study was saved from unreality, conduct from uncertainty, and teaching from insincerity and shallowness.” (Page 71)
“But certainly Nehemiah, like Esther,6 had the wisdom to present the matter first as news of a personal blow, not as a political issue.” (Page 87)
“It was a death to make way for a rebirth. A millennium before this, Israel had been transplanted to Egypt, to emerge no longer a family but a nation.1 Now her long night in Babylon was to mark another turning-point, so that she emerged no longer a kingdom but a little flock with the makings of a church. This is the point at which the book of Ezra begins.” (Page 15)
- Title: Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary
- Author: Derek Kidner
- Series: Tyndale Commentaries
- Volume: 12
- Publisher: IVP
- Print Publication Date: 1979
- Logos Release Date: 2009
- Pages: 192
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible. O.T. Ezra › Commentaries; Bible. O.T. Nehemiah › Commentaries
- ISBNs: 9780830842124, 9781844742905, 0830842128, 1844742903
- Resource ID: LLS:TOTC15EZRUS
- Resource Type: Bible Commentary
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-02-23T00:43:17Z
Reviews
1 rating
Joseph Stickney
9/4/2019
As with the best of the Tyndale Commentaries, if you can supply the interested but untrained mind, the author can supply enough teaching to help you walk away with a better understanding of the content, purpose and writer of the part of the Bible under consideration. This isn't a work for those who already have a deep knowledge nor for pastors looking for life applications. The introduction is brief, but this is because Dr. Kidner chose to address the many controversies that swirl around Ezra and Nehemiah at the end of the commentary rather than the beginning. I think this was a good choice as it let me focus on the text and the great rebuilding projects of the Temple, the Wall and in a sense Judaism itself. The most important parts of the text were the focus with the various name lists of geologies and who was building what part of the wall were given attention only as needed. It was refreshing to have an instructor who knew how to pay attention to the cruxes and inspirational messages of the text. The appendixes were quite interesting for someone how had little previous knowledge of the great debates that have raged over who, when, why and such the two books were written. Dr. Kidner did a nice job of presenting the various ideas, defending his positions and in the final analysis suggesting that if we lay waste to the text we don't really have much of a Bible left to study.