Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther

Van Wijk-Bos writes accessibly but this commentary has enough shortcomings to warrant caution. She misreads Ezra 3:3 — where the exiles built the altar despite their fear of neighbours — as if fear were the motivating purpose, and her claim that the foreign-wife expulsion had "no precedent in the laws anywhere" ignores the Deuteronomic prohibitions she herself quotes nearby; as Williamson (WBC) shows, the issue was not the absence of legal basis but of a prescribed remedy once marriage had occurred. More seriously, she accuses Nehemiah of deliberately inflating the threat from Sanballat — "who can blame Nehemiah if he fanned the fires of rumors a little" — a grave charge no other major commentary supports. She calls Ezra's handling of the intermarriage crisis "cowardly and condemnable behaviour," reduces the community's genuine theological motivation to mere fear and "scapegoating," and is inconsistent in praising creative application of Torah in one passage (Neh 10) while condemning it in another (Ezra 9–10). The Esther section fares no better: her suggestion of a Maccabean date is an older view Berlin (JPSBC) regards as largely abandoned; she dismisses Esther 4:14 ("relief will arise from another quarter") as merely human agency, against the near-consensus of Baldwin, Berlin, Levenson, and Jobes that it is a veiled reference to divine providence; and her flat assertion that "God is not a presence in the book" contradicts commentators who find a theology of hidden sovereignty throughout. Her reading of Esther primarily as a patriarchal critique is what Jobes (NIVAC) calls an "ideological reading" that misses the author's actual concerns. The commentary closes by declaring "there is no hope in the 'letter of the law,' no matter how creatively interpreted" — an unfortunate verdict on the very books being expounded. For better lay-level alternatives: Kidner or Throntveit on Ezra-Nehemiah, Baldwin or Jobes on Esther.

This slim volume in the Westminster Bible Companion addresses a particular audience: it is written "to the church and more specifically to the laity," particularly those engaged in teaching the Bible within the context of the local church (p. ix). Wijk-Bos, therefore, has the difficult task of mediating to lay Christians an academic reading of two biblical books, Ezra-Nehemiah and Esther, that have not exactly been at the center of Christian piety. The commentary's approach is broadly historical-critical, sprinkled with literary and feminist observations. Especially influential is Tamara Eskenazi's work on Ezra-Nehemiah, In an Age of Prose (SBLMS 36; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). The commentary follows a similar format throughout. Following short, general historical-critical introductions to each book, the commentary moves serially through the book from beginning to end with discussions ranging from one paragraph to four pages per section. Usually each section opens with a short selection from the NRSV, chosen from amidst the larger section. Such commentaries and series serve an important function within biblical scholarship, but are not the place for detailed, innovative interpretations. Wijk-Bos gives a general, informed reading of the text. She clarifies potentially mystifying elements in the text, and points the way to an informed, coherent reading of the text at a level appropriate to her audience. What is most interesting, however, about the commentary is how it attempts to reach its audience/market. Lines of historical connection, a "heremeneutical bridge," are drawn to connect experiences recorded within the text to the experience of the contemporary reader. Wijk-Bos accomplishes this in at least two ways. First, she attempts to relate to her reader through personal anecdotes and references to current events. [Full Review]