JOSEPH BLENKINSOPP, Ezra-Nehemiah: A Commentary
(OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988). Pp. 366. $29.95.
Recent years have witnessed a plethora of English
commentaries on Ezra-Nehemiah (e.g., Fensham, 1982, Clines, 1984;
Williamson, 1986), and Blenkinsopp's volume will surely take its place at
or near the head of this class. His presentation combines an unparalleled
mastery of Persian and Jewish history with a firm control of other Second
Temple biblical materials and a sensitivity to the positive character of
early Judaism.
The Book of Ezra Nehemiah in its canonical form
describes the effects of royal decrees by Cyrus and Artaxerxes, the first
of which led to the dedication of the temple thanks to the leadership of
Sheshbazzar, Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, while the second resulted in the
purification of the community through the law and the dedication of the
wall and the city it enclosed. Those who shaped the narrative in this way
(the Chronicler and the scholiasts who completed his work) were concerned
to sustain the life and energy of the community to which they belonged.
Blenkinsopp challenges Japhet and Williamson, who
have argued extensively that Ezra Nehemiah is distinct from the Books of
Chronicles, and notes that their argument is based primarily on
linguistics and stylistics. Since 70 percent of the book's narrative comes
from prior sources, such arguments, he holds, are quite perilous. B.
provides different interpretations for the linguistic differences Japhet
and Williamson have alleged and appeals to a list of terms characteristic
of or exclusive to Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah as greatly complicating
the task of proving separate authorship. Similarly, he questions whether
Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah put forth irreconcilable positions on themes
such as David, Solomon, the North, the role of prophets, and the doctrine
of retribution. He notes seven areas in which the books share the same
religious interests and ideology (preparations for building the first and
second temple, interest in the sacred vessels, descriptions of liturgical
music, and the like) and detects an editorial patterning extending
throughout the Chronicler's history. In his judgment, it was the
Chronicler who added the census list to the Nehemiah Memoir in Nehemiah 7
from its original location in Ezra 2 (this against Williamson).
After a brief survey of the treatment of Ezra and
Nehemiah in Jewish sources (Ezra was omitted in Sirach and reemerged as
the more important leader with the ascendancy of Pharisaic rabbinism), B.
provides a splendid survey of the political and social context of the
Persian period. He believes that I Esdras is a narrative dealing with the
restoration of worship by Josiah, Zerubbabel, and Ezra, based on the
canonical shape of the books and stemming from the late 2d or early 1st
cent. B.C.E. His conclusion that I Esdras worked with the same text as MT
is dubious, in my opinion.
In the commentary itself, B. provides very
extensive bibliography, a fresh translation, brief text-critical notes,
and verse-by-verse exposition. Additional notes are inserted on the laying
of the foundations of the second temple, the chronology of Ezra and
Nehemiah (458 and 445), Ezra's law (Deuteronomy 12-26, plus ritual
legislation in the Pentateuch attributed to P and H), and Nehemiah's
Jerusalem (the boundary on the eastern side followed the preexilic wall,
while on the west and south Nehemiah probably followed the pre-Hezekiah
wall).
The mission of Udjahorresnet in Egypt under Darius
I provides comparative material for understanding both Ezra and Nehemiah.
Artaxerxes sent Ezra to restore the Jerusalem cultus and put
administration of Jewish law on a firm basis at a time of great crisis in
the western end of the empire. Ezra was probably recalled within a year
because of his disruptive policies on mixed marriages. Ezra found his
principal support among a prophetic-eschatological group (those who
trembled at the word of the God of Israel [Ezr 9:4]), which espoused a
rigorist interpretation of the law and which was out of favor with the
religious leadership in the province.
Artaxerxes sent Nehemiah as governor because he
believed that the fortification of Jerusalem, carried out by a Jewish
subject of unimpeachable loyalty, would significantly strengthen his own
position in Abar-nahara. Against Alt, B. argues that Judah was an
administrative unit distinct from Samaria from the beginning of Persian
rule. The province was placed provisionally under Samarian control because
of the incidents reported in Ezr 4:7-23, but given political autonomy
again under Nehemiah.
The commentary could profit by more detailed
discussions of introductory questions. No date is identified for the
Chronicler's history, and the exact extent and purpose of the Nehemiah
Memoir lack clear definition (see pp. 46-47). B. notes almost in passing
that the Chronicler's history ended with the dedication of the wall in Neh
12:43, and that it was then supplemented by 12:44-47 and 13:1-3 (both
beginning with "on that day") and by extracts from the Nehemiah Memoir
(13:4-31). In my opinion, the reasons for these additions are not
sufficiently explored. An index would also be very useful.
But these are minor flaws indeed, and biblical
scholars everywhere will welcome or debate this learned exposition and
defense of Ezra Nehemiah as part of the Chronicler's history of Israel.
~~~~~~~~
By Ralph
W. Klein, Lutheran
School of Theology at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60615