Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Commentaries: Job

"This third edition of the Anchor Bible Book Of Job (Volume 15 in the series) contains numerous new, revised or augmented notes. Of special interest is the inclusion of readings from the earliest translation of the Book Of Job, the recently published Targum (Aramaic translation) recovered from Cave XI of Khirbet Qumran, in the Judean Wilderness near the Dead Sea, perhaps the version which was suppressed by Rabbi Gamaliel. The Book Of Job is one of the indisputably great works of world literature. The story is well-known: a prosperous and happy man, distinguished for rectitude and piety, falls victim to a series of catastrophes. And the occasion (if not the reason) for these undeserved calamities: Satan's challenge to Yahweh to test the sincerity of Job's faith. It is by now proverbial to refer to the patience of Job. Yet this traditional image derives only from the Prologue and the Epilogue of the book. But the Job who confronts us in the long middle section is anything but patient. His outcries against God raise the question of theodicy, or divine justice, which occupies the greater portion of Job's Dialogue with his comforters. But it is inevitably as literature that Job must be read and enjoyed. This translation is marked by a concerted effort to capture as much as possible the poetic and metrical characteristics of the original Hebrew: the result is a version notable for its accuracy and directness. The experience of reading the Book Of Job in this translation, then, is to rediscover an exceedingly eloquent masterpiece. In the terse, rhythmic quality of the translation, the incisive comprehensiveness of the introduction and notes, Job maintains the high standard of scholarship, literateness, and readability established in The Anchor Bible." - Yale University Press

"In this final volume in the Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms series, Tremper Longman offers an accessible commentary on one of Scripture's most intriguing books. With his deft exegetical and expositional skill, the resulting work is full of fresh insight into the meaning of the text. In addition to the helpful translation and commentary, this volume considers the theological implications of the wisdom texts found in the book of Job as well as their literary, historical, and grammatical dimensions. Footnotes deal with many of the technical matters, allowing readers of varying interest and training levels to read and profit from the commentary and to engage the biblical text at an appropriate level. This built-in versatility has application for both pastors and teachers" - Baker

"The Cornerstone Biblical Commentary series is the product of nearly 40 scholars, many of whom participated in the creation of the NLT. The contributors to this series, who are well-known and represent a wide spectrum of theological positions within the evangelical community, have built each volume to help pastors, teachers, and students of the Bible understand every thought contained in the Bible. In short, this will be one of the premier resources for those seeking an accessible but fairly high-level discussion of scriptural interpretation." - Tyndale Press

“The late Dr. Driver (died February, 1914) won his high place among English scholars by his accurate learning and by his remarkable power of judgment, which made him a critic of the first rank. He had undertaken to write the commentary on Job for the International Critical Commentary, and had begun in August, 1912. But when in January, 1914, his fatal illness made it evident that he could not complete it, he selected Dr. Gray to finish the task. He could not have chosen a better one, for Gray possesses the same qualities that had made Driver famous, and he has carried on the work in Driver's manner and spirit.' One always expected from Driver something solid and dependable, something that had been carefully considered and finely executed, but one never expected anything startling, brilliant, and original from him. These expectations are fulfilled in this book 2 although it is really more the work of Gray than of Driver” – Julius Brewer

"In this volume, J. Gerald Janzen examines the text of the book of Job as a literary text within the context of the history of the religion of Israel and within the broader context of the universal human condition. He approaches the basic character of the book from a literary perspective which enables him to identify human existence as exemplified in Job and to expound on the mystery of good and evil, which gives human existence its experiential texture and which together drive humans to ask the same kind of questions asked by Job. This is the first full-length commentary to present Job systematically and literarily." - WJK Press

"In this commentary Lindsay Wilson shows the book of Job to be a coherent literary work that addresses this question: Is it possible for humans to have genuine faith in God regardless of their circumstances? Wilson argues that Job's bold, sometimes questioning cries to God are portrayed as legitimate expressions of trust for a righteous person in adversity. Through critical exegesis of the text, Wilson focuses on the message of Job and its implications for practical ministry, examining such key issues as suffering, justice, lament, and faith. He also touches on various pertinent topics in Christian ethics, including individual character, wealth, suicide, and the environment. In a final section Wilson offers guidance on using Job as a resource book for pastoral care and prayer, and he discusses how to teach and preach from the book of Job." - Eerdmans

"The book of Job is a vivid testimony to pain, a plea for justice, and a wrenching theological debate about suffering and its causes. Central to this debate are questions about the roles that God and humans play in causing human suffering and whether divine-human relationships can proceed in the midst of overwhelming anguish. Like a riddle, the text grasps readers' minds and emotions, inviting them to participate in Job's story and to work toward their own solution to the dilemmas of both Job and his friends." - Liturgical Press

"This commentary is deliberately designed for readers without knowledge of Hebrew. Linguistic matters and textual problems are not ignored (there is even a separate index of Ugaritic and Accadian words), but such details are confined to the (copious) footnotes to avoid hindering the non-linguistic reader. The generous Introduction covers the topics we should expect; particularly welcome are several pages on parallel literatures in the ancient Near East. Discussion of date is not doctrinaire, more space going to literary issues and content of message. Rather like the Biblische KommentarKommentar series, at the end of each division of commentary comes a brief section entitled 'aim'—good for helping readers to see through the considerable wood among the trees. Detailed exegesis is thus combined with appreciation of the overall message of the book. Thus Hartley combines technical detail with a more popular approach in a promising way.” – John G. Snaith

"The complexity of the book of Job often brings out exceptional talent in commentators. Habel's interpretation of the book belongs to a select group of excellent commentaries on Job. Immensely learned, the discussion focuses on the literary and religious dimensions of the text. Sensitive to the allusive quality of language, Habel explores the interplay of words and sounds throughout Job… Religious ideas receive equal attention, with admirable results. In this way the world of the author opens up—a word in which Canaanite concepts of deity and folk convictions about chthonic forces come together to form a foil for religious views of the author. In a nutshell, God transcends human concepts of order but governs the universe by a principle that escape human comprehension, and a heroic Job provokes the deus absconditus into becoming a deus revelatus.” – James L. Crenshaw

"The book of Job is considered by many to be the crown jewel of biblical literature in its claim to speak about God. The word that defines the challenge for every reader of the book is “struggle.” The struggle results from the fact that whatever Job's truth may be, he was neither the first nor the last to try to articulate it. In the midst of so many words in this world about God from writers within and outside the scriptural witness, this book offers a truly astonishing declaration about what it means to live in a world where order breaks down and chaos runs amok, where the innocent suffer and the wicked thrive, where cries for help go unanswered. This new commentary by biblical scholar Samuel Balentine leads readers on an in-depth and far-reaching look at the nature of the book of Job and the various attempts by the many who have sought to further explore Job's essential struggle." - Smyth & Helwys Publishing

"For Francis Andersen, the Old Testament book about Job is one of the supreme offerings of the human mind to the living God, and one of the best gifts of God to humanity. "The task of understanding it is as rewarding as it is strenuous. . . . One is constantly amazed at its audacious theology and at the magnitude of its intellectual achievement. Job is a prodigious book in the vast range of its ideas, in its broad coverage of human experience, in the intensity of its passion, in the immensity of its concept of God, and not least in its superb literary craftsmanship. . . . From one man's agony it reaches out to the mystery of God, beyond words and explanations." The original, unrevised text of this volume has been completely retypeset and printed in a larger, more attractive format with the new cover design for the series. These commentaries are designed to help the reader of the Bible understand what the text says and what it means. The Introduction to each book gives a concise but thorough treatment of its authorship, date, original setting and purpose. Following a structural Analysis, the Commentary takes the book section by section, drawing out its main themes, and also comments on individual verses and problems of interpretation. Additional Notes provide fuller discussion of particular difficulties. The goal throughout is to explain the true meaning of the Bible and make its message plain." - IVP Academic

Job 38-42 can be found HERE Unfortunately a digital version of volume 2 is not yet available.

“Clines has produced an impressive commentary for our time. It is very readable, clear and didactic. It is exhaustive in its coverage, with full attention to the opinions of scholars of past and present and yet with original readings of its own. It is specifically designed for specialist and non- specialist alike. The commentary can be consulted on different levels for different purposes-this is one of its major strengths. Clines himself likens the danger involved in writing a commentary on Job to that of composing a ninth symphony and reckons that in length his commentary is ‘perhaps the longest on the book of Job since Gregory the Great’ – Katherine J. Dell