As in the other Cambridge Bible Commentary volumes, an introduction is followed by the text of the New English Bible translation divided into sections. Each section of the text is followed by the commentary upon it. Canon Robinson shows that 2 Kings is truly a continuation of the story told in the preceding historical books. The narrative now passes to the decline of the kingdoms of Israel and …
The plan of this volume of commentary on the New English Bible text of the First Book of Kings follows the pattern of the now well-established series on the Old and New Testaments. The main divisions of the text are those provided by the New English Bible itself, but these are further subdivided for the purposes of the commentary, which is printed in short sections following the relevant portio…
The Chronicles, divided into two books purely for convenience, have long suffered from neglect; this is partly because much of their content can be found elsewhere in the Old Testament and partly because their presentation, emphasizing genealogies and ritual ceremonies, has lacked appeal for modern man over the last few hundred years. Yet these books, with their theological interpretation of hi…
Unlike the First and Second Books of the Chronicles, the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah have received considerable attention; partly because their presentation is more attractive, but more importantly because they illuminate a period of history about which very little is known: Jerusalem in the context of the Persian domination of South-West Asia from 539 to 336 B.C. In other respects, however, the…
The two books of the Apocrypha treated here have little in common apart from the attribution of their authorship to Ezra (Esdras in Greek), the 'second founder' of Judaism. The commentators resolve the confusion arising from different ways of referring to the various Ezra writings before examining each book separately.