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Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 16: Ezra, Nehemiah is unavailable, but you can change that!

Based on years of intensive study and research, this commentary provides competent guidance to the complexities of Ezra and Nehemiah. The author gives special attention to the perplexing problems associated with their form, structure, and literary history. Supporting the view that much of this material is from the fifth century BC, just as it claims to be, he concludes that “there is good reason...

sections. At the opening, in place of a royal command we find the proclamation of the law of God. As Childs has stressed, “Ezra does not read the law in order to reform Israel into becoming the people of God. Rather, the reverse move obtains. It is the reformed people to whom the law is read” (Introduction, 636). In such a situation there can be no opposition, but rather confession (Neh 9) and recommitment, not least to the service of the temple. “We will not neglect the house of our God” is the
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