Customer Reviews

The Book of Numbers (New International Commentary on the Old Testament)

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This is an excellent book. Ashley is well-informed about what people of differing viewpoints have to say, and this is therefore the most in-depth evangelical commentary on the book of Numbers. He doesn't accept all the conservative positions easily, but he is fairly conservative in the end.

He convincingly argues for the unity of the canonical book and undermines many source-critical "solutions" to some of the problems of interpretation. However, this doesn't mean he thinks the entire book was written by one person or during or immediately after the time of Moses (not least because the Pentateuch never suggests that it was wholly authored by Moses,and nor does any New Testament book, though Jesus does refer to them as the books of Moses the same way he refers to the Psalms as David, who clearly didn't write all of them). Ashley does think much of it goes back to Moses in some form, and he takes its own claims of its origins as genuine. He occasionally gives arguments for this about certain passages. He makes no bones about being an evangelical and seeing scripture as God's word, wholly inspired (and I assume without error in its original form, which we no longer have 100%, though he doesn't focus on the details of his views on inspiration). He doesn't take a view on problems related to large numbers in the Hebrew scriptures, but hardly anyone, evangelical or not, has a satisfying and all-encompassing view about that thorny problem.

Ashley doesn't constantly focus on theology and ties to the New Testament, but he does do a fair amount of excellent reflection on such matters in almost as much detail as his historical, linguistic, and sociological reflection.

For a more mainstream commentary, the best is Jacob Milgrom's JPS Torah commentary (which isn't just the old classic liberal viewpoint but has covered new ground, undermining lots of now-old-fashioned views still taught at the undergraduate level). Ashley had some access to Milgrom's work before revising his manuscript into the final draft, but he had little time to take into account Milgrom's whole commentary. Milgrom's thought has influenced Ashley's from his many papers and earlier books. Gordon Wenham's Tyndale volume is quite good but getting dated, and it's extremely short. Katherine Sakenfeld's International Theological Commentary and Dennis Olson's Interpretation are more recent popular level commentaries, but they're from a more critical direction. R. Dennis Cole's New American Commentary volume is more recent but isn't as detailed as Ashley's. I look forward to John Sailhamer's replacement of the Word Biblical Commentary volume by Philip Budd, but until then Ashley will be the standard for evangelicals at this level of detail. His is the most in-depth of the recent evangelical commentaries on this book, though that doesn't mean these other commentaries wouldn't complement it nicely.

The commentary is a good commentary on a difficult Old Testament Book. I found it to be easy reading with good footnotes for more indepth study if needed. A worthy asset to one's library for the Old Testament. The entire nicot series is good but expensive.For the student with a limited budget purchasing the series a volumn at a time, as needed, seems much more practical. I have purchased a couple of the volumns through amazon and have found the prices good and the service excellent. Dan T.

Intermediate to advanced level of study from the NICOT series. This is generally highly recommended for the scholarly content, but yet is not "beyond" the student.

Overall, Ashley's work on Numbers was a good read. His work strong on linguistic / philological information. He often has helpful literary insights into the text. He is committed to interpreting the Masoretic Text as it stands, and repeatedly dismantles some of the ridiculous source-critical "solutions" to the problems in the text. He has a solid sensible outline. He is extremely cautious when it comes to speculating about names or events and has the academic honesty to admit when there isn't enough information to know something for certain.

There were a few minor problems, some of which I did not see addressed in other reviews.
-Sometimes the rebuttals of critical scholarship can become redundant, and one wonders if this couldn't have been simplified or relegated to an excursus or to the footnotes. It seems like there was more space than necessary being taken up on this subject.
-Related to that, I occasionally found that he was frequently stating things that were painfully obvious. (For instance, Moses' Cushite wife was either Zipporah, or "some other woman.")
-Ashley rarely discusses NT application, which I would have liked to see more of in a conservative work this size. (Numbers 12 is an example of where I thought he could have done more in this regard).
-His excursus on large numbers was a good review of different options, but I found myself confused as to what he actually believed on the matter.
Little things like this don't ruin the book, but they definitely detract from a clear and solid exegesis of Numbers.

Ultimately, knowing what I know now, I would probably still buy this book again. I would recommend this book to conservatives and preachers looking for an in-depth treatment of Numbers. It is not necessary to know Hebrew to read this (all the fonts are transliterated), but it would definitely be more useful to someone with at least an elementary understanding of the language.

A terrific commentary, the whole commentary is impressive.
To say more than just giving my seal of approval I could say I was particularly excited to read his application of the Balaam inscription found at Deir Alla to the Balaam narrative.

Excellent Bible commentary. Will of great help to me, when I prepare for sunday school class.