Customer Reviews

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (New American Commentary)

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I like to get different points of view in my commentary selection for sermon preparation. I saw the summary of this book and thought it would be a solid but not exceptional conservative viewpoint on date and purpose of these wisdom books.

I was pleasantly surprised to find Garrett a well informed and scholarly conservative, in the tradition of Gleason Archer. He has read, and interacts with the literature on Wisdom Literature, and makes a very good case for an older date, and for Solominic contriubtions to the text.

The Proverbs commetnary is excellent, even the outline, where the seeming random proverbs are listed into a numnber of sub-categories - this is very helpful. Ecclesiastes interacts with some more liberal-evangelical authors who agree with the consensus of a late date for the book - Garrett again makes a strong and informed case for the authorship and purpose of the book.

Buy this first for these Biblical books

The New American Commentary series is one of the best commentaries produced today. Authors incorporate scholarship and academic excellence with language the serious Bible Study student can understand. Grammar, word meanings and their significance within the passage are discussed along with structure, themes, and relationships the passage shares with other Scriptures. In Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, Daune Garret delves into the intricacies of Hebrew poetry and wisdom literature without becoming overly academic. Nor does he "dummy-down" the beauty of its nuances in order to make his scholarship more palpable. If you are looking for a commentary with more depth to deepen your personal study of God's Word, or if you are a teacher looking for another tool in order to prepare your lessons, I highly recommend this volume and the entire series.

Short and to the point: This book is very good -- the best part of it is the slightly unconventional perspective of viewing Proverbs (or clusters of proverbs) contextually. Very helpful. If you have one commentary on the Wisdom Books -- get this one.

I totally changed my review after reading more carefully the book again. Actually it is the opposite of what I said before. The commentary on Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs are quite excellent, but the commentary on Proverbs is kinda lame. The thing that makes the commentary on Proverbs really bad is the use of Hebrew poetry and then forcing the individual proverbs, hence the name!!!, into artificial poetic sections for purposes of Bible studies!!!??? I thought a good Bible study would let one know how Proverbs was designed, not to make it convenient, so one could start at chapter one and finish at 31!!!!