Judges, Ruth: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture Volume 6

Very thorough and helpful dealing with many of the interesting quirks of these books. I believe it to be the best commentary on Judges out there. No commentary can have everything, but this one either has it or points to where else to dig.

Very broad, very thourough, very nice to work with, very clear, very relevant for lay people, textually and theologically strong although not dogmatically overstressing. The author dates the book after 721 BC and it is interesting, if not always convincing, how the theodicee questions influence the points of the stories Block examins (e.g. Judges 16). The book is over 760 pages (the figure on this site is not right). dr.Block is indeed to be commended for his achievement.

This is a particularly fine example of evangelical scholarship which also interacts with both Jewish and liberal scholarship in a significant way to produce a very usable commentary for both the specialist and the informed layman. His work in the NICOT on Ezekial is heralded by many (Tremper Longman among them) as simply the best OT commentary in print. The constraints in this series might be a bit more restrictive, but Block has managed to produce what is probably the best commentary on Judges available. (Lawson Younger's work in the NIVAC series is good too but the goal of that series is even more modest.) Block's introductory material is almost worth the price of the book. And the commentary portion, while working verse by verse, includes an awareness of the literary, poetic and narrative concerns. He also shows an awareness of the text-critical issues when appropriate without getting bogged down, he always displays a high view of inspiration, and his footnotes are a wealth of information for the student wishing to go deeper and interact with scholarly sources. The primary drawback to the commentary is that often after writing a page or two about one particular verse Block often fails to draw some fairly obivious conclusions on what the narrator is actually communicating. For example, he spends nearly 2 pages on the place and person names of 4:2 and suggests various possibilities concerning the issue of how Jabin could oppress the Israelites from Hazor (which had recently been decimated by Joshua), and yet he does not draw any conclusions about the narrator's characterization of Israel's request for the Lord's help being due to political oppression (that is, rather than repentance.)

It isn't simply that I buy everything Daniel Block publishes. I do. But, apart from the fact that he is a fine scholar, a clear-headed exegete and a solid communicator, this commentary is a must-buy for any student of the OT simply because it represents one of the few works out there on Judges. Until recently, Judges suffered from a drought of commentators. The last thorough treatment on Judges was written by Robert Boling for the Anchor series and that was back in 1975. Block's commentary gives the reader both balanced and well-informed comments on the text's meaning as well as philological notes on the Hebrew (kept conveniently in the footnotes). It delves deeply for the more scholarly concerns, yet can be accessed by an informed layperson. Block's familiarity and usage of secondary sources, which are also listed in the footnotes, are invaluable for further study. While some quite commendable commentaries on Judges have recently appeared since Block's work, none have come close to eclipsing his fine contribution.