“Ecclesiastes is one of the most fascinating — and hauntingly familiar — books of the Old Testament. The sentiments of the main speaker of the book, a person given the name Qohelet, sound incredibly modern. Expressing the uncertainty and anxieties of our own age, he is driven by the question, “Where can we find meaning in the world?” But while Qohelet’s question resonates with readers today, his answer is shocking. “Meaningless,” says Qohelet, “everything is meaningless.” How does this pessimistic perspective fit into the rest of biblical revelation? In this commentary Tremper Longman III addresses this question by taking a canonical-Christocentric approach to the meaning of Ecclesiastes. Longman first provides an extensive introduction to Ecclesiastes, exploring such background matters as authorship, language, genre, structure, literary style, and the book’s theological message. He argues that the author of Ecclesiastes is not Solomon, as has been traditionally thought, but a writer who adopts a Solomonic persona. In the verse-by-verse commentary that follows, Longman helps clarify the confusing, sometimes contradictory message of Ecclesiastes by showing that the book should be divided into three sections — a prologue (1:1-11), Qohelet’s autobiographical speech (1:12-12:7), and an epilogue (12:8-14) — and that the frame narrative provided by prologue and epilogue is the key to understanding the message of the book as a whole.” Eerdmans
New International Commentary of the Old Testament: Genesis by Victor P. Hamilton
“he first volume of Victor P. Hamilton’s two-volume study of Genesis in the NICOT series, this commentary contributes a solid, thorough explication of the wealth and depth of material embedded in Scripture’s foundational book. Hamilton’s substantive introduction—which serves both this volume and the one covering chapters 18–50—discusses the structure of Genesis, its composition, its theology, the problems involved in its interpretation, its canonicity, and the Hebrew text itself. The commentary proper, based on Hamilton’s own translation, evidences his extensive knowledge of the ancient Near East and of contemporary scholarship, including literary, form, and text criticism. Siding with the arguments in favor of the literary and theological unity of the Genesis text, Hamilton stresses the main theme running throughout the book—God’s gracious promise of blessing and reconciliation in the face of evil and sin. A unique feature of this book is Hamilton’s emphasis on the reading of Genesis by the New Testament community. Following his commentary on each section of Genesis, he discusses where and how the New Testament appropriated material from that section and incorporated it into the message of the New Covenant.” – Logos