Unix Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 OT Library Commentary (31 Volumes) - Accordance (accordancebible.com) It is highly advisable to start Your journey into the Old Testament with the combination of all of the three sets: OTL, THOTC and ZECOT. So, specifically those three sets. They don't cover volumes on the Old Testament Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals. The effort to read through these three different sets, is approximately the same, if comparing same amounts in each. I would give five stars to the OTL 31 volumes set, if it were not for that it doesn't work well enough without reading some other commentaries in parallel with it, namely those sets that I recommend specifically. The content in the OTL 31 volumes set is excellent and parts of the set is also the very most recent or best commentary on the Old Testament. I read in the 1 Samuel and Hosea commentaries, in five different series, for this review. Hosea. James L. Mays (1969) pays more attention to form criticism and is decently up-to-date on criticism, though it doesn't bring up all of what the most recent commentaries do. Despite that the other commentary sets that I recommend to read in parallel with OTL, are partially newer, OTL 31 volumes doesn't now in 2024 come off as out-of-date. Besides, even though many of the volumes in it are several Decades old, there aren't much newer really great commentaries out there for ALL of the books of the Old Testament, especially that are already under Accordance. So, yeah, the two commentary sets I recommend reading in parallel with it, are: Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (THOTC) and Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament (ZECOT). Reading the three sets together, one gets an adequately close read which makes, or making, a wealth of observations. The different sets observe different things. I read the three complementing final chapters in THOTC Hosea by Bo H. Lim and Daniel Castelo (2015) for this review (2021), which have various themes. THOTC is about how to read books of Scripture. THOTC Hosea Chapter 12, titled Marriage, Sexuality, and Covenant Faithfulness, by Daniel Castelo; which beginns: "If a person knows anything at all about Hosea, usually it has to do with his marriage and the underlying themes of steadfast love and faithfulness, themes that typically are associated with chapters 1–3, but which occur in other parts of Hosea as well." And that is the most wortwhile part of said commentary volume. ZECOT is the most recent commentary set, and yeah it's not complete yet. There's a volume forthcoming in which is much needed for the setup I recommend of the three sets OTL/THOTC/ZECOT, (and there isn't any volume on Exodus in the THOTC set): forthcoming 2024: Davis, Katherine: Exodus. THOTC isn't complete, either, and I don't know of any commentary volumes in THOTC that would be forthcoming (probably aren't any under the works). In the rest of this review, follows my selection of quotes from two commentaries: Canonical and Theological Significance Under the influence of European Romanticism, modern culture has tended to see the prophets of the OT as the apex of passionate individualism. W. Robertson Smith, the great British Semiticist of the late nineteenth century, sounds rather contemporary in describing Amos and Hosea, respectively, as the forerunners of the principled rationalist and hopeless romantic: It is a special characteristic of the Hebrew prophets that they identify themselves with Jehovah’s word and will so completely that their personality often seems to be lost in His. In no prophet is this characteristic more notable than in Hosea, for in virtue of the peculiar inwardness of his whole argument his very heart seems to throb in unison with the heart of Jehovah. Amos became a prophet when he heard the thunder of Jehovah’s voice of judgment; Hosea learned to speak of Jehovah’s love, and of that love in chastisement and in grace towards Israel’s infidelity, through some experiences of his own life, through a human love spurned but not changed to bitterness, despised yet patient and unselfish to the end, which opened to him the secrets of that Heart whose tenderness is as infinite as its holiness.53 If not for this excerpt’s references to two eighth-century-BCE prophets and their theological context, one could almost imagine that Robertson Smith were speaking of the “higher consciousness” of a Johann von Goethe or William Wordsworth. But the OT prophets were hardly the rugged individualists or the angry iconoclasts that they have sometimes become in modern culture. Every era flirts with the danger of remaking the Bible in its own image, so it is essential to explore the historical and theological backgrounds of Hos 1 in a manner that offers cultural bridges to our day. Without doing this, the use of modern lenses in examining the themes of judgment and salvation can lead to the anachronism that the supposed extremes of the prophets reflect the “bipolar”54 character of YHWH their God as first demonstrated in Exod 34:6–7, an important text for Hosea and the rest of the Twelve. Hwang, Jerry. Hosea: God's Reconciliation with His Estranged Household. ZECOT. Edited by Daniel I. Block. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.0. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2021. Page 88. https://accordance.bible/link/read/ZECOT-Hosea#1839 Or is the quotation a portrayal of their future situation when judgment has left them without a king? It is conceivable that after the murder of Pekah some of the people attributed their desperate circumstances during the Assyrian invasion to his assassination. But the second possibility is the more likely interpretation. ‘Now’ in Hosea frequently introduces the announcement of imminent punishment (10.2; 5.7; 8.10, 13). The fall of the king is predicted in the context (10.7, 15). And it is difficult to imagine that the audience to which Hosea speaks would readily admit that the king was no help and they actually had no reverence of Yahweh. The quotation reports what Ephraim will soon have to say when Yahweh’s judgment drives them to self-knowledge and penitence. They will confess they are a people without their own king. They did not let Yahweh rule them. And the man they have as ruler is a delusion. What can he as king do for them? No more than he has always done. [4] ‘What can the king do for us?’ The answer to this disillusioned question comes tumbling out in a torrent of staccato expressions. The embittered phrases add up the sum of Israel’s actual experience with their kings. Each of the three measures in the first line is a way of saying that the king betrays the obligations of his inauguration. ‘Speak (mere) words’ means empty speech that carries no authenticity, is followed by no fulfilling act (cf. Isa. 8.10). ‘Swear falsely’ refers probably to the oath taken before God to serve the best interests of the people. ‘Make covenant’ points to the pact of relationship established between king and people at his enthronement (II Sam. 3.21; 5.3).a In Israel the king had assumed the responsibilities which the judge bore in the era of the tribal league; it belonged to the royal office to judge the people by saving them from their foes and by maintaining the right order of life within the community. Justice (mišpāṭ) was his peculiar responsibility.b But the harvest of royal treachery had been a false justice that killed rather than saved. The fields of the nation bore poison weed instead of grain. Mays, James Luther. Hosea. The Old Testament Library. Accordance Electronic edition, version 1.2. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1969. Page 140. https://accordance.bible/link/read/OTL_Commentary-31#121628 (3) Corruption in the Legal System (10:4c) The holism of YHWH’s distinctive theopolitics for Israel remains the topic in the rest of Hos 10:4. Moving briefly to the topic of corruption in the legal system, the themes of history and creation recur together in a condemnation of Israel’s perversion of “justice” (מִשְׁפָּט). This is the same Hebrew term for the covenantally motivated “justice” that YHWH seeks from his people (e.g., 5:1; 12:7[6]) but that now signifies “judgment” that “sprouts [פרח] like a poisonous plant [רֹאשׁ] in the furrows of a field” (10:4c). Since רֹאשׁ refers to something toxic (Deut 32:33; Jer 8:14), the species in question is likely a strangling plant with the ability to “sprout/blossom” (פרח; cf. Isa 17:11) and undermine a farmer’s neatly plowed rows of crops (i.e., the context and image of 10:4c). This depiction of social injustice as a plant that damages other plants seems to operate also on an economic level. Hosea and other prophets condemn kings and priests for conspiring in an oppressive system of land tenure (Isa 3:13–15; Amos 5:11; Mic 2:1–2, 9). The leaders of Israel forced individual farmers, who should have worked their ancestral plots of land for themselves (cf. Lev 25; Deut 26), to produce agricultural goods that enriched the upper class (Amos 2:8; 5:11; 6:6) and provided commodities for international trade (Hos 2:7[5], 10[8]; 12:2[1]). Corruption in Israel’s legal system is doubly like a poisonous plant, for it both contaminates the land as well as strangling the people who work it. Hwang, Jerry. Hosea: God's Reconciliation with His Estranged Household. ZECOT. Edited by Daniel I. Block. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.0. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2021. Page 252. https://accordance.bible/link/read/ZECOT-Hosea#4124 In the summary statement of Hos 2:15[13], the passage finally makes explicit the identity of YHWH’s rivals: “Then I will repay her for the days of the Baals, to which she used to burn incense, and [when] she adorned herself with rings and jewelry, and walked after her lovers” (2:15[13]a–d). As an umbrella label for economic pursuit of “lovers” and religious syncretism with Baal, the polytheistic term “Baals” (בְּעָלִים) appropriately reflects the pluralism and complexity of syncretism in Israel during the eighth century BCE, including but not limited to veneration of YHWH and Baal the Canaanite god the storm.49 The penalty for Israel’s compromise with pagan worldviews will be that YHWH will “repay, reckon” (עַל + פקד) sinful actions with their creational consequences. As in the case of YHWH’s vow to “repay, reckon” (עַל + פקד) the sin of Jezreel (1:4–5), divine judgment against syncretism comes less in the form of legal retribution and more as the poetic justice of Israel’s reaping the nonfruit of an infertile land (2:8[6], 11[9]).50 In addition to Israel’s barrenness, the practices of burning incense for Baals (2:15[13]b), self-adornment for cultic festivals (2:15[13]c), and pursuing fertility rituals (2:15[13]d) will yield nothing for Israel and thereby show the superiority of Yahwistic faith to all its competitors. Yet having described how YHWH justly repays Israel for past sins, the passage lingers in the theological uncertainty of what future could possibly remain between a gracious God and his amnesiac people. YHWH’s quarrel speech ends with a cry of betrayal: “But she forgot me!” (2:15[13]e).51 As James Luther Mays rightly notes, this conclusion “mixes anger and anguish, accusation and appeal; it summarizes in a word the guilt of Israel and the problem of Yahweh.”52 The signatory formula of “The Declaration of YHWH” (2:15[13]f) lends an air of finality to the estrangement spoken of in the preceding quarrel (2:4–15[2–13]). Hwang, Jerry. Hosea: God's Reconciliation with His Estranged Household. ZECOT. Edited by Daniel I. Block. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.0. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2021. Page 110. https://accordance.bible/link/read/ZECOT-Hosea#2163 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Nathan Parker Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 Thanks! If you wish to condense it into a paragraph or two, you can post it on reviews. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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