A Time to Mourn, and a Time to Dance

Kidner's commentary is like a slim slab of gold. While not a detailed exegetical commentary, Kidner's compact, concise, insightful, arresting style makes this one of the most useful and accessible commentaries on this often misunderstood book. He can say in a single paragraph what it takes most people a page to say. On the joy motif expressed in 2:24-26 he remarks: "In themselves and rightly used, the basic things of life are sweet and good. What spoils them is our hunger to get more out of them than they can give." Kidner's writing is to the commentary literature what poetry is to prose.