Digital Logos Edition
The Gold Medallion Award–winning Expositor’s Bible Commentary is a major contribution to the study and understanding of the Scriptures. Providing pastors and Bible students with a comprehensive and scholarly tool for the exposition of the Scriptures and the teaching and proclamation of their message, this 12-volume reference work has become a staple of seminary and college libraries and pastors’ studies worldwide.
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary uses the New International Version for its English text, but also refers freely to other translations and to the original languages. Each book of the Bible has, in addition to its exposition, an introduction, outline, and bibliography. Notes on textual questions and special problems are correlated with the expository units; transliteration and translation of Semitic and Greek words make the more technical notes accessible to readers unacquainted with the biblical languages. In matters where marked differences of opinion exist, commentators, while stating their own convictions, deal fairly and irenically with opposing views.
“The account opens with a clear, concise statement about the Creator and the Creation. Its simplicity belies the depth of its content. These seven words are the foundation of all that is to follow in the Bible. The purpose of the statement is threefold: to identify the Creator, to explain the origin of the world, and to tie the work of God in the past to the work of God in the future.” (Pages 19–20)
“This is not a story of the success of Joseph; rather it is a story of God’s faithfulness to his promises.” (Page 234)
“His theological perspective can be summarized in two points. First, the author intends to draw a line connecting the God of the Fathers and the God of the Sinai covenant with the God who created the world. Second, the author intends to show that the call of the patriarchs and the Sinai covenant have as their ultimate goal the reestablishment of God’s original purpose in Creation. In a word, the biblical covenants are marked off as the way to a new Creation.” (Page 19)
“The inference of God’s commands in vv.16–17 is that God alone knows what is good (ṭôḇ) for man and that God alone knows what is not good (raʿ) for him. To enjoy the ‘good’ man must trust God and obey him. If man disobeys, he will have to decide for himself what is good (ṭôḇ) and what is not good (raʿ). While to modern man such a prospect may seem desirable, to the author of Genesis it is the worst fate that could have befallen him. Only God knows what is good (ṭôḇ) for man. Only God can know what is good.” (Page 45)
“In less than six months they had witnessed ten plagues, the pillar of cloud and fire, the opening and shutting of the Red Sea, the miraculous sweetening of the water, and the sending of food and meat from heaven; yet their real question came down to this: ‘Is the Lord among us [beqirbēnû] or not?’” (Pages 406–407)