Presents selections of literary criticism devoted to the Bible.

Most people think of the book of Job as an attempt to explain suffering, but they fail to see the more important issue of God's righteousness and graciousness in bringing good out of evil. The understanding offered in this book helps the reader focus accordingly on God's purpose in grace to bring Job to know Jehovah himself and his heavenly will that he might thereby be transformed and truly become a servant of God. In this respect, the book presents a paradigm of God's crucial work with all believers to make himself known to them through revelation and repentance, that they might genuinely know him as their Redeemer and be one with his exalted will. As is expressed throughout the Bible, God warmly desires that all his people serve him. The repentance that comes at the climax of the book is not the believer's repentance upon initial faith but the more crucial repentance of the mature believer for the kingdom of God. God's purpose with our lives depends, therefore, on our understanding his will and knowing our God and his righteousness. Job is an "ordinary servant of God," therefore, as a pattern to all believers.

The book of Job is an epic poetic work of the highest order, unmatched in the world’s literature for its depth of feeling and emotion, sensitivity toward human suffering, magnificence of language, and narrative and poetic artistry. At the same time, it is one of the most perplexing books in the Bible. Dr. Jerry Gladson, a seasoned minister and professor of religion, not only presents a comprehensive interpretation of the biblical text, but also confronts religion’s greatest dilemma: Why do innocent people suffer? While highlighting the problem of evil as presented in the classic book of Job, he thoroughly explains each passage and offers a thorough introduction to Job and its ancient Near Eastern context that demonstrates the astounding relevance of Job for contemporary readers. Through it all, Dr. Gladson’s commentary proves that even in today’s modern world, Job still speaks to the needs of the suffering. Touched by the Hand of God shares an enlightening, spiritual study of Job—one of the Bible’s great books of wisdom.

This book analyzes the `strophic' structure of the poems in Isaiah 40-48 and discusses the consequence of this approach for their interpretation. Among other things, the autor takes a critical stand as to the `redaktionsgeschichtliche' approach of the poems concerned.

This book deals with the so-called Blessing of Jacob" (Genesis 49) in all its aspects, discussing philological, literary and historical problems.After an introductory chapter a thoroughly discussed translation of Genesis 49 and an analysis of its poetical structure are presented, followed by the discussion of the genre-definition "tribal saying" (Stammesspruch), and a synchronic and diachronic analysis of Genesis 49 in its literary context (Gen. 47:29-49:33). The remarkable results of this analysis are finally discussed in relation to Israel's history.It is suggested that only part of the "Blessing" functioned within the (originally much shorter) deathbed account (Gen. 47:29-49:33*), reflecting the historical situation of the time of origin. Afterwards it was thoroughly worked up into its present shape to meet the conditions of later political development."

This volume deals with the rhetoric, the formal and thematic framework, of Psalms 90-150 (the Fourth and Fifth Book of the Psalter). It is the conclusion of the Psalms Project started with Psalms 1-41, OTS 53 (2006) , and continued with Psalms 42-89, OTS 57 (2010). Formal and thematic devices demonstrate that the psalms are composed of a consistent pattern of cantos (stanzas) and strophes. The formal devices especially include quantitative balance on the level of the cantos in terms of verselines, verbal repetitions, and (on the level of the strophes) transition markers. The quantitative approach to a psalm in terms of verselines, cola and/or words in most cases clearly discloses a focal message. This massive study is rounded off by an updated introduction to the canto design of biblical poetry (including the book of Job, Lamentations, the Songs of Songs, Deutero-Isaiah and other major poems of the Hebrew Bible).

A quantitative structural approach also helps to identify the focal message of the poems."--Jacket.

The clear structure of psalm groups in Psalms 107-150 can be interpreted as signaling a renewed hope in the royal/Davidic promises. Each psalm group of Book V is organized around a theme or key word that is related to the royal/Davidic hope in the earlier sections of the Psalter: Psalms 107-118; Psalm 119; Psalms 120-137; Psalms 138-145; Psalms 146-150. These words and themes figure prominently at the major seam psalms of the Psalter – Psalms 1-2 and 89. Thus, the content and subject matter at the end of the Psalter is integrally related to the content and subject matter at the beginning. The editorial-critical method used by Snearly is an extension of the method used by David M. Howard, Jr. in The Structure of Psalms 93-100. Snearly also draws from recent insights in the fields of poetics and text-linguistics in order to establish a linguistically based foundation for reading the Psalter as a unified text. The methodology emphasizes parallel features, with special focus on key-word links. This method advances editorial criticism by not only discerning links within a group but also showing that those links do not occur with the same frequency outside of the group.