Ezra & Nehemiah (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible | BTC)

by Matthew Levering

Publisher:

Brazos

, 2007

Overview

Illuminating the theological character of these prophetic books, Matthew Levering provides a detailed examination within the context of a holy land and people. Highlighting God’s covenantal gifts of purity, he discusses the leaders’ efforts to renew and reform Israel, and how these labors have become part of the church’s own story.

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Key Features

• Contains an in-depth introduction
• Offers theological analysis of Scripture
• Includes bibliographical references and indexes

Contents

Top Highlights

“The book of Ezra is a period of sackcloth and ashes, a necessary purification so that Israel’s idolatrous pride in its gifts might be peeled away in penitence and neediness and the people be thereby prepared to receive their Lord.” (Page 33)

“Neh. 1–6 has to do primarily with holy land while Neh. 7–13 has to do primarily with holy people.” (Page 117)

“God’s creative and redemptive purposes. Put another way, history’s patterns are not merely, or strictly, chronological; patterns of participation in the history of creation and salvation draw past, present, and future into a complex unity, grounded in the unity of all things coming forth and returning to the triune Creator and Redeemer (see Levering forthcoming).” (Page 22)

“If the main theme of the book of Ezra is the struggle to rebuild the temple, how does this theme relate to Ezra’s other themes: the return to the land (Ezra 1–2), the renewal of sacrifice (Ezra 3), the struggle against the ‘peoples of the land’ (Ezra 4–5), the renewal of the festival of passover (Ezra 6), the journey of Ezra the Scribe and his followers from Babylon to Jerusalem (Ezra 7–8), and the purification of the returned exiles who had mingled with the peoples of the land (Ezra 9–10)? Insight into this question is obtained by appreciating the depth of the meaning of the terms ‘land’ and ‘people’ in the Old Testament.” (Page 31)

“Jesus could not have symbolically acted out the fulfillment of Israel had there no longer been the Torah to read or the temple in which to celebrate the festivals.” (Page 20)

Praise for the Print Edition

. . . Levering provides extensive information that throws light on what might otherwise be unfamiliar information.

—Dianne Bergant, CSA, Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P., Distinguished Professor of Old Testament Studies, Catholic Theological Union

This is a good addition to other commentaries helping preachers take the step from close examination of the text to seeing how each portion of this story fits in the whole flow of redemption. . . . [It] points the way to thinking more theologically in these books.

—Ray Van Neste, assistant professor, Nihon University

Product Details

• Title: Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible: Ezra & Nehemiah
• Author: Matthew Levering
• Editor: R. R. Reno
• Publisher: Baker
• Publication Date: 2007
• Pages: 256

About Matthew Levering

Dr. Matthew Levering is James N. Jr. and Mary D. Perry Chair of Theology at Mundelein Seminary, and Co-Director of the Chicago Theological Initiative. He holds a B.A. from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; M.T.S. from Duke University; and a Ph.D. from Boston College. He is the author or co-author of over thirty-five books including such works as Scripture and Metaphysics, Participatory Biblical Exegesis, Biblical Natural Law, Proofs of God, Aquinas’s Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?, The Abuse of Conscience, and Reconfiguring Thomistic Christology. He is currently at work on a multi-volume dogmatics, whose first five volumes have appeared (most recently Engaging the Doctrine of Israel). He is the editor or co-editor of over twenty books including such works as The Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology, Aristotle in Aquinas’s Theology, and The Reception of Vatican II. He is the translator of Gilles Emery, O.P.’’s The Trinity. He co-edits two quarterly journals, Nova et Vetera and the International Journal of Systematic Theology. He is the past president (2021-22) of the Academy of Catholic Theology, and served as its founding Chair of the Board from 2007-2016. He has been a member of Evangelicals and Catholics Together since 2004. With Thomas Joseph White, O.P., he co-edits the Thomistic Ressourcement series for Catholic University of America Press. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the St. Paul Center, and he edits the Renewal within Tradition series for Emmaus Academic Press.