Customer Reviews

First and Second Samuel: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching & Preaching)

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This commentary fulfills the goals of the series for the most part. Brueggemann is an excellent writer with keen sensitivities for the text. His attention to narrative issues is especially welcome when applied to perhaps the finest narrative in the Hebrew Bible. Thea aim of the Interpretation series is to provide insights for teaching and preaching, and these abound in this commentary. On the other hand, this is a commentary on both books of Samuel which is less than 400 pages in length. What that means is that not every verse receives attention. The focus is on the larger (more important?) stories. In addition there is little attention to issues of history, text, grammar, and translation. If you want a commentary that provides discussion of every verse, then you will have to look elsewhere, and you will not find a single volume that treats both books of Samuel. If you are looking for good, intelligent teaching material on major texts from these books, then this is the commentary to use. One other factor to consider is that this commentary is getting a bit old, and I and II Samuel have been the target of intense literary interest over the past two decades. Much has happened in the discussion of these books since this commentary was written with which it can obviously not interact.

This is an excellent book for the biblical scholar and students as well.
Bruggemann will not put you to sleep as his writing is comprehensive; yet,
easy to understand.

Brueggemann is as always a good writer and his commentary is easy to read and very interesting. Howevever, a major problem is that it is difficult to dicern what he actually is commenting. Is it the literary text or the historical events? When Brueggemann for instance discusses Samuel or David he mixes the logic so that you never now if he is talking about the character or the "real, historic" persons and their motives. As a result he tend to introduce explanations - motives, parties etc - that is not the explanations of the text or the so called narrator. It would have been better if he had distinguished between the analysis of the text and his suggestions about "what really happened".