Job 21-37

Word Biblical Commentary #18A

by David J.A. Clines

The WBC is the best-selling multi-volume commentary series on the market today with more than a million volumes in circulation. WBC authors are all experts in their field and skillfully bring the text to meaning through careful exegesis and exposition. Each WBC contributor creates his own translation based on the best texts and literature available. The WBC has the largest bibliography of any commentary. To take full advantage of this bibliography, it is uniquely placed at the beginning of every passage being exegeted.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Biblical Studies

592 pages, Hardcover

First published February 13, 2006

Reviews

[Steven Azzara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like volume 1, the content in volume 2 is amazing. This is the best commentary on Job that I’ve seen. The insight is astounding and Clines often challenges my presuppositions that I had about Job, his friends, and even God’s speeches to Job. The only criticism I have is the layout of the series but that isn’t Clines’ fault, it’s the publishers. I’m reading volume 3 next.

[Samcwright · Rating 4 out of 5]

My star rating has more to do with this as a scholarly resource than my love for this books’ content. I’ve now read through about five commentaries on the book of Job. David A. Clines’ contribution to Job in the Word Biblical Commentary is the most comprehensive scholarly commentary I have read.

In each chapter, he provides an incredible bibliography which includes all of the major academic Christian, Jewish, and Secular work cited by experts. Clines then includes a translation of the text followed by pages of footnotes going back to what he and others have found in translating the text. Then he follows with a layout of the form and structure of each chapter, commentary, and an explanation. Clines seems to have a more Christian (and a bit apologetic) perspective. And I find myself disagreeing with his perspective 25-30% of the time. But as a central source of data and as a reference to other sources, I have never found anything as comprehensive. Readers can use this as a reference and ignore the commentary if they wish. And anyone who has done the work of bringing so much information together is entitled to share their opinion.

As a warning to readers, there are three books in the commentary at 500 pages each (1,500 pages!). If you’re looking for something that is still scholarly but shorter, consider Anderson, Fohrer, or the Hartley commentary. If you’re looking for much more readable with lots of meaning, consider the Kurshner commentary (he mostly articulates the scholarly consensus in a very digestible way until the very last chapter where he diverges a bit).

[Adam Chandler · Rating 2 out of 5]

The strength in this commentary is in Clines bringing up other viewpoints from other commentators side by side. The opinions of Clines himself in this volume are subpar. There is a clear drop in quality from the preceding volume of this commentary from 17 years prior. It seems the time found Clines becoming more cynical to biblical integrity both in terms of the manuscripts and the divine message therein. On the former, Clines presumes the book of Job cannot be depicting actual events and thus needs to fulfill a poetic structure he has assumes. This results in multiple chapters hacked up and rearranged to fit what Clines thinks should be the real arrangement, giving Zophar a third speech, taking away words from Job and Elihu, and openly denying many chapters as original despite manuscript or internal evidence. Clines also seems cynical of the divine message to the point of him degenerating into one of the friends. He knows the opening of the book well where God has a glowing view of Job, but Clines repeatedly presumes Job's assessment of himself in Job 29-31 is false because all rich people, like Job, must oppress others. He just declares there is some secret sin of which Job is guilty and needs to repent of. If that is not the attitude of the friends, I do not know what is.