Book Review: Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther for Everyone

Today I'm giving a brief review of a new title in SPCK's popular 'For Everyone' bible commentaries. This is John Goldingay's "Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther for Everyone", which joins my library of volumes in the series on Genesis (review forthcoming), Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua Judges and Ruth, and the previously reviewed 1 and 2 Chronicles. Providing and Old Testament foil to Tom Wright's series in the New Testament, Goldingay's offerings are a friendly, relaxed and accessible way into studying individual books of the Bible.

This volume, as is normative for the "For Everyone"'s, has a very useful introduction, contextualising the books and providing a very brief explanation of where they fit into the Old Testament. Brief notes on the genre, aim and style of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther are helpful - providing a little bit of background. There are also some interesting notes on the way in which the Old Testament books are ordered, and how they relate to the Church Liturgical Year.

As we start to read the section of the book that deals with the book of Ezra, the reader is instantly struck by the relaxed way in which Goldingay writes. These are accessible and readable commentaries - with the author providing anecdote to ground often disconnected (from us, at least) events into intelligible observations. Each passage - Goldingay breaks up the book into chunks of around 5/6 verses (apart from the odd longer section!) - gets a few pages of comment and unpacking. Goldingay's knowledge of overall Old Testament themes and biblical narrative is very helpful here. Ezra is in many ways a tough book - Goldingay provides a helpful guide through the moral maze!

The commentary on Nehemiah is of a similar kind to that on Ezra. A few months ago I went to a day conference for young leaders, where all of the (brilliant!) teaching was exposition of the kind of leader that we see in the character of Nehemiah. Goldingay helpfully demosntrates the truth and relevance of much of that day's teaching - this is a useful summary of the book of Nehemiah, which is an important part of the story of Gods people, and its interesting to me how Goldingay relates to that discssion; "The bible... is interested in God's leadership not ours. There is no doubt that Nehemiah, like Ezra, is a great leader... His story is part of God's story". Goldingay is also helpful in observing a common error; "focusing on making Scripture answer our questions rather than looking for its agenda".

Esther is a fascinating book of the Bible, not least because it doesn't explicitly mention God. Its also of particular interest because its about a female follower of God. Spoiler - God and His Word are not anti-women. Goldingay's commentary on this book is perhaps less useful than that on Ezra and Nehemiah - he dwells on issues of sexism etc quite a bit - but there is some good stuff. The arguably quite random nature of Esther - and its presence in the Christian Bible - is dealt with powerfully by Goldingay; "The presence of Esther in the Christian Scriptures corresponds to Paul's emphasis in Romans 9-11 on God's eternal commitment to the Jewish people and on the importance of that commitment to Christians". Something I intend to look in to!

I found this new little collection of commentary, anecdote and observation to be very helpful. Goldingay sits in the broad evangelical camp - so some may disagree with some or much of what he says - but his passion for making accessible the biblical texts is clear. This (and indeed the "For Everyone" series generally!) is a good introduction to the three books of the Bible it deals with, especially to Ezra and Nehemiah.