Proclaimer Blog
Commentaries on Ezra
I'm posting today from South Asia, considerably warmer than the UK. I'm here with a small team of students because it's our mission week when we send out teams to go and work with churches. I've brought a team over here to sample Christianity in a different culture and also work with 9 students on a year long preaching course modelled very loosely on the Cornhill Training Course. We're going to be studying Ezra which has been my study project for the last 6 months. It's not hugely well served by good commentaries, which is a shame because this is a super book full of exciting stories – a book for our time and one that preachers should definately have on their radar to preach. Here's my pick of the commentaries.
For devotional commentaries (those arising out of sermons or the like), there's nothing to beat Bob Fyall's latest contribution to the written word. He's written the BST guide on Ezra and Haggai and it's simply superb. We've brought out a dozen copies to give away.
For technical commentaries, the best two (in my less than expert opinion) are Charles Breneman in the New American Commentary series and HGM Williamson in the Word Biblical Commentary series. Fensham (NICOT) also deserves a mention. Williamson has also written the entries in IVP's one volume New Bible Commentary. Worthy of note is Old Testament stalwart Gordon McConville who has written both the Daily Study Bible volume and the ESV Study Bible notes.