Ezra-Nehemiah (review)

Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 213 Reviews attend to the author's every sentence. Tate's literary style exhibits a briefness and a penchant for understatement conveying an insightfulness and felicity with words. The concluding words in his "Comment" on Psalm 79 are a fine example of his penetrating terseness. Although the psalm is full of anger, anguish, and horror, the characteristic movement and development of the communal lament from bemoaning the current calamity to certainty in the salvation to be wrought by God is clear. Tate identifies this change in Psalm 79 and underscores it in this brief but pregnant sentence: "It is noteworthy that the last word in the psalm is 'praise'-hardly expected at the beginning of the psalm" (p. 301). Tate also sees the larger picture. Not only does the author indicate that Psalm 79 expresses the lerusalem survivors' bemoaning of the extremity of their physical situation, but he also highlights the basic issue of religious thought with which the psalm deals: "How do the people of God cope with disaster in the face of God's seeming absence" (p. 301). Psalm 79 "is a heartfelt effort," asserts Tate, "to integrate God into their understanding of the events that have wrecked their lives" (p. 302). This book is a fine commentary on the middle section of Psalms. Tate's erudition and lucidity shine through his terseness. He has succeeded in producing a volume that is valuable to student, minister, and scholar. The author and the editors of Word Biblical Commentary are to be applauded. Daniel Grossberg State University ofNew York Albany, NY 12222 EZRA-NEHEMIAH. By Mark A. Throntveit. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Pp. xiii + 129. Louisville: Westminster/lohn Knox, 1992. Cloth, $16.95. The present volume is the.latest addition to the Interpretation series addressed to preachers and teachers. Following the format of the series, Throntveit has a brief introduction dealing with Ezra-Nehemiah as narrative , literary conventions, authorship, setting and message. Rather than proceeding verse by verse, the commentary has the form of expository essays on segments of the text based on the RSV. Throntveit divides the work into two sections of unequal length: return and reconstruction (Ezra 1:1-Neh 7:3) and renewal and reform (Neh 7:4-12:43). The former is Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 214 Reviews again divided into sections corresponding to the three returns successively under Zerubbabel (Ezra 1-6), Ezra (Ezra 7-10), and Nehemiah (Neh 1-4; 6:1-7:3). The only departure from the order of the MT is the displacement of Nehemiah 5-the account of social abuses and their removal-to the end of the book as a separate memoir of Nehemiah. In general, Throntveit expounds the text in broad strokes rather than by detailed and close reading. Familiar problems of long-standing-the chronological order and dating of the missions of the protagonists, the authenticity of the documents cited, the identity of Ezra's law, the extent of Jerusalem at the time of Nehemiah-are left on one side. On the much discussed issue of the origin and authorship of Ezra in relation to Chronicles, Throntveit declares (but without arguing the case) in favor of the view, defended by Sara Japhet, Hugh Williamson, and others, that EzraNehemiah is a quite distinct composition, and therefore makes no use of Chronicles in his interpretation of themes (e.g., a kind of exodus typology, duodecimal symbolism) which he finds to be prevalent in the book. On the composition of Ezra-Nehemiah he follows Williamson for the most part. The displacement of Nehemiah 5, mentioned above, is a rather surprising departure from his stated purpose to read the book as a consecutive narrative . It also raises the question why he did not also reposition the reading and explanation of the law followed by the celebration of Succoth (Neh 7:72-8:18) after Ezra 8. On this latter point he leaves the reader somewhat confused. After first arguing against moving the Nehemiah passage to a position between the arrival of Ezra and the account of the marriage crisis (p. 43), he goes on to agree with the consensus that that is where...