Theology Today - Vol 21, No. 3 - October 1964 - BOOK REVIEW

388 - I and II Kings, A Commentary

I and II Kings, A Commentary
By John Gray
744 pp. Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1963. $8.50.

This magnum opus, by the Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages at the University of Aberdeen, appears twelve years after the publication of J. A. Montgomery's volume on Kings in the International Critical Commentary. The two works are inevitably complementary. Principal justification for the new volume is the mass of relevant archaeological evidence from Qumran, Ras Shamra, and other sites in Palestine and Syria, which has accumulated in the last decade and is incorporated in the new commentary. This new material casts light on the text (the value of Lucianic LXX readings is underlined) and chronology of Kings, the topography of Jerusalem, and the institutions of Israel, especially kingship and the prophetic office. A book as serious and comprehensive as this is bound to become an important part of every Biblical student's library.

389 - I and II Kings, A Commentary

After an introductory section (63 pages) dealing with the composition, text, and chronology of Kings, the author considers the books under three headings: The Hebrew Empire I 1-1 1; The Divided Kingdom I 12II 17; Judah Alone II 18-25. Each section of the Biblical text is introduced briefly, presented in the author's own translation, to which textual footnotes are provided, and discussed verse by verse. All Hebrew and Greek words and phrases have been transliterated. Useful bibliography, indices, and three maps (The Realm of Solomon, The Assyrian Empire, and The Development of Jerusalem) complete the volume.

One of Professor Gray's primary interests is the meaning and etymology of Hebrew words, and he finds considerable help in Ugaritic and Arabic cognates. Many of his textual emendations and etymological conjectures will not commend themselves to specialists as probable (e.g., the explanation of Abishag, p. 77), and the non-specialist may find the mass of etymological and textual material wearisome. Occasionally a note of irritation with former textual critics who emended the Hebrew "in their haste" (p. 54) intrudes. In presenting the history of Israel and her institutions in the context of contemporary ancient Near Eastern culture, Gray is at his best, and his use of the archaeological data is evident on nearly every page. Here too, however, some suggestions and conclusions are not supported by sufficient evidence: e.g., the pre-exilic compilation and post-exilic redaction of the text of Kings (p. 13 ff.), the comment on I Kings 17: 42 where in addition Montgomery is not accurately represented, the suggestion that Elijah's real name may have been Micaiah ben Imlah (p. 400), or that Nathan may be the author of the account of the Davidic Succession (p. 24). Theologically the book is disappointing. The author seeks to find by means of historical and textual studies what he curiously call "the royal road back from the disagreements of doctrinal theology to the objective certainty of theological truth" (p. 10), a goal which to this reviewer strains the meaning of "theological truth" and wrongly emphasizes the "disagreements of doctrinal theology." The theology of the Deuteronomist is discussed (pp. 15 ff.), but at crucial points in the commentary theological exegesis fails, as at I Kings 22, where one wants more than a note about false prophets and further is somewhat surprised to find in v. 21 "the germ of the conception of the Holy Spirit as a person of the Godhead, though at a very primitive level" (p. 403). In the commentary on this passage the strengths and weaknesses of the work can be seen in brief.

The inclusion of maps is a welcome addition to a commentary on Kings, but a comparison of Gray's maps with his topographical index reveals the need for several maps of Palestine to replace the one included in the book. A table of Hebrew scripts would facilitate an understanding of

390 - I and II Kings, A Commentary

the discussion on pp. 51 ff. Numerous printing errors, especially in transliteration, mar the book; p. 121 line 3 ff. is not a sentence; G. E. Wright should be listed only once on p. 730; Gehman should be mentioned with Montgomery's commentary (p. 722). Sometimes the author's translated text differs from his translation in the commentary (cf. p. 433 v.27 and p. 439 line 30). Behistun (p. 30) should be Besitun.

In spite of some overstatements and unsupported conjectures, the commentary is a welcome addition to "The Old Testament Library," and a valuable work of scholarship to which every student of Israel's history will gratefully turn and from which he will learn much.

John H.Marks
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey