For over one hundred years International Critical Commentaries have had a special place among works on the Bible. They bring together all the relevant aids to exegesis - linguistic, textual, archaeological, historical, literary, and theological - to help the reader understand the meaning of the books of the Old and New Testaments. The new commentaries continue this tradition. All new evidence now available is incorporated and new methods of study are applied. The authors are of the highest international standing. No attempt has been made to secure a uniform theological or critical approach to the biblical text: contributors have been invited for their scholarly distinction, not for their adherence to any one school of thought.

For over one hundred years International Critical Commentaries have had a special place among works on the Bible. They bring together all the relevant aids to exegesis - linguistic, textual, archaeological, historical, literary, and theological - to help the reader understand the meaning of the books of the Old and New Testaments. The new commentaries continue this tradition. All new evidence now available is incorporated and new methods of study are applied. The authors are of the highest international standing. No attempt has been made to secure a uniform theological or critical approach to the biblical text: contributors have been invited for their scholarly distinction, not for their adherence to any one school of thought.

The book of Isaiah has been regarded from the earliest Christian period as a key part of the Old Testament's witness to Jesus Christ. This commentary by highly regarded Old Testament scholar J. Gordon McConville draws on the best of biblical scholarship as well as the Christian tradition to offer a substantive and useful commentary on Isaiah. McConville treats Isaiah as an ancient Israelite document that speaks to twenty-first-century Christians. He examines the text section by section--offering a fresh translation, textual notes, paragraph-level commentary, and theological reflection--and shows how the prophetic words are framed to persuade audiences. Grounded in rigorous scholarship but useful for those who preach and teach, this volume is the second in a new series on the Prophets. Series volumes are both critically engaged and sensitive to the theological contributions of the text. Series editors are Mark J. Boda, McMaster Divinity College, and J. Gordon McConville, University of Gloucestershire.

David Wyn Williams presents a literary reimagining of the Suffering Servant of Second Isaiah through the lens of the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, offering insight into how the servant's prophetic characterisation dismantled an exiled nation's ideologies of suffering and called the people to understand their plight as part of a redemptive story on behalf of the nations. While Williams devotes the first half of this volume to a close examination of the scriptural servant, the second half is given wholly to the experiences and thoughts of a contemporary 'suffering servant' whom Williams interviewed throughout his final days, setting up a dialogue between the two in order to raise important questions around our corporate and individual responses to suffering. This book is a timely reflection on how an ancient people responded in faith to a national calamity, and how a prophetic figure who features in but a handful of poems inspired the nation to endure and rewrite its own narrative of suffering. The servant's example in the midst of today's uncertainties could not be more poignant.

Scholars have long recognized the importance of Paul’s citations from the Pentateuch for understanding the argument of Galatians. But what has not been fully appreciated is the key role that Isaiah plays in shaping what Paul says and how he says it, even though he cites Isaiah explicitly only once (Isaiah 54:1 in Galatians 4:27). Using an intertextual approach to trace more subtle appropriations of Scripture (i.e., allusions, echoes and thematic parallels), Harmon argues that Isaiah 49-54 in particular has shaped the structure of Paul’s argument and the content of his theological reflection in Galatians. Each example of Isaianic influence is situated within its original context as well as its new context in Galatians. Attention is also paid to how those same Isaianic texts were interpreted in Second Temple Judaism, providing the larger interpretive context within which Paul read Scripture. The result is fresh light shed on Paul’s self-understanding as an apostle to the Gentiles, the content of his gospel message, his reading of the Abraham story and the larger structure of Galatians.

Traditionally, biblical studies has been an academic discipline with roots deeply embedded in historical inquiries about the genesis of texts. It should come as no surprise that a significant amount of scholarly attention has been on the formation of the "book" of Isaiah, especially since the compelling imagination of Isaiah comprises an anthology of prophetic voices, each with its own historical context. At the same time, it is well known that the chasteness of ancient texts discloses precious little specific information to aid with this reconstructive task. How Isaiah Became an Author tackles this historical irony head-on. David Davage begins by describing two contrasting ways authorship was conceived in antiquity: Mesopotamian and Greek. He next analyzes the processes through which Isaiah ben Amos came to be imagined as an author of the "book" of Isaiah. In doing so, Davage changes the question from "Who wrote the 'book' of Isaiah?" to "How, and in what ways, was the relation between the prophet called Isaiah and the book that came to bear his name conceived in the Second Temple period?" Davage shows how a prophetic anthology that originally circulated anonymously eventually became transmitted together with a name. Although that name originally did not convey any notion of penning, but rather portrays Isaiah ben Amos as a tradent of divine revelation transmitted by many agents over time, it came to be reimagined as a statement about the origins of the book. This transformation is, then, explained as the result of negotiations between the Mesopotamian and the Greek author concepts in the late Second Temple period, negotiations that have continued even to this day.

In ancient Israelite literature Exile is seen as a central turning point within the course of the history of Israel. In these texts "the Exile" is a central ideological concept. It serves to explain the destruction of the monarchic polities and the social and economic disasters associated with them in terms that YHWH punished Israel/Judah for having abandoned his ways. As it develops an image of an unjust Israel, it creates one of a just deity. But YHWH is not only imagined as just, but also as loving and forgiving, for the exile is presented as a transitory state: Exile is deeply intertwined with its discursive counterpart, the certain "Return". As the Exile comes to be understood as a necessary purification or preparation for a renewal of YHWH's proper relationship with Israel, the seemingly unpleasant Exilic conditions begin, discursively, to shape an image of YHWH as loving Israel and teaching it. Exile is dystopia, but one that carries in itself all the seeds of utopia. The concept of Exile continued to exercise an important influence in the discourses of Israel in the Second Temple period, and was eventually influential in the production of eschatological visions.

Lamentations is a book that has never had a place of honor at the table of Christian spirituality. This is an unfortunate state of affairs because its challenging poetry has much to offer. This volume explores the how the biblical book of Lamentations may be engaged afresh so that it can function as Holy Scripture for the ekklesia. Four main chapters consider issues in hermeneutics, exegesis, the use of Lamentations in worship, and pastoral reflections. These chapters have been supplemented by seventeen reception history studies written by an international team of Jewish and Christian scholars. These studies introduce a wide range of interpretations and uses of the book of Lamentations from throughout the history of Judaism and Christianity. They include examinations of the use of Lamentations in Isaiah 40-55, the Targum, Rashi, and contemporary Jewish thought, the Patristic period, Calvin, Jewish and Christian worship, music, Rembrandt, and psychological and feminist interpretation. Appendices include new English translations of LXX Lamentations and Targum Lamentations.

Andrew Abernethy employs the concept of ‘kingdom’ as an entry point for organizing Isaiah’s major themes. Four features frame his study: God, the King; the lead agents of the King; the realm of the kingdom; the people of the King.