Numbers

Olson’s commentary is much less technical than the other volumes in this group, but its influence on the interpretation of Numbers justifies its place among them. His central proposal—that the two censuses provide the book’s principal literary and theological framework, with Numbers 1–25 depicting the death of the rebellious exodus generation and Numbers 26–36 the emergence of a new generation oriented toward the promised land—has become one of the major reference points in subsequent scholarship. The numerous correspondences he identifies between the two sections make the proposal considerably richer than a simple observation about the censuses, and later commentators such as Allen and Cole have developed it further. There are legitimate qualifications: the hopeful turn begins before chapter 26, while the new generation is not portrayed quite as uniformly positively as a sharp two-generation scheme can suggest, objections later commentators have rightly emphasized. Nevertheless, Olson fundamentally changed the way many readers perceive the shape and theological movement of Numbers. As an accessible theological commentary containing one genuinely paradigm-shaping contribution, it deserves 5 stars.

Levine’s two-volume commentary is an indispensable technical resource, particularly for Hebrew philology, ancient Near Eastern institutions, geography, historical background, poetry and comparative evidence. His treatment of Balaam is especially valuable, incorporating the Deir Alla inscriptions into a wide-ranging reassessment of the biblical material, while his proposal of a Transjordanian source or archive behind portions of Numbers 21–24 illustrates the originality of his historical work. Levine explicitly acknowledges G. B. Gray as his principal predecessor, whose philological and critical work he regarded as exceptionally instructive, but he substantially updates that tradition through far richer epigraphic and comparative evidence. His source reconstructions can be speculative, and readers looking primarily for final-form literary analysis or Christian theology will need to supplement him with Morales, Wenham or Awabdy. Nevertheless, Levine frequently supplies historical and linguistic information unavailable elsewhere and remains one of the most important scholarly commentaries on Numbers.

This two-volume commentary is especially helpful in understanding Numbers in its ancient Near Eastern context. Written by a leading Jewish scholar, it also interacts heavily with the Hebrew. [Full Review]

Baruch Levine's Anchor Bible (1993, 2000) may be the most in-depth commentary on Numbers in recent years (in English, anyway). I have great respect for Levine in terms of the learned kind of work he does, but his presuppositions seem to me to be a little outdated, and he focuses so much on source criticism that I don't think there's a very large percentage of his commentary devoted to anything I find valuable in a commentary. He is fairly strong on historical background, philology, and textual criticism, but there is next to no attention to theology. He takes the book to come largely from priestly hands in the post-exilic period. It's one of the most important academic works on the book, but I don't recommend it for those who just want some help in preparing to teach the book in Bible studies or sermons. [Full Review]

Large commentary with ancient Near Eastern detail and philological discussion. Strong on textual backgrounds to the diverse types of material. [Full Review]