ESV Expository Commentary: Daniel–Malachi (volume 7)

ESV Expository Commentary: Daniel—Malachi, Volume 7 (Crossway, 2020).

This volume is the seventh OT entry in the ESV Expository Commentary series. It features an exposition of Daniel and each of the books in the Book of the Twelve: Daniel by Mitch Chase, Hosea by Georg Schwab, Joel by Allan Harman, Amos by Michael McMelvey, Obadiah by Max Rogland, Jonah by Jay Sklar, Micah by Stephen Dempster, Nahum by Daniel Timmer, Habakkuk by David Firth, Zephaniah by Jason DeRouchie, Haggai by Miachel Stead, Zechariah by Anthonny Petterson, and Malachi by Eric Ortlund. 

This is an excellent series of succinct treatments of these OT prophetic books. It's not easy to find helpful and clear exposition of these books in one volume. The exposition in this volume is usually crisp and helpfully focused on the flow of the book's message. This gives the commentary collective a nice balance as you make your way through it. Because of their space restriction, the commentators have an equally brief overview of the relevant introductory issues & also each summarize the main theological themes of each book. 

Here are a few of the insightful synthesis statements that I found helpful: 

• Chase on Daniel: "Throughout decades of exile, Daniel remained faithful to Yahweh despite external opposition and threat of death. Amid the mayhem, though, a light of hope burns bright that one day God will establish an everlasting kingdom. . . . The stories and visions in the book of Daniel all declare to the reader: you can trust God" (19). 
  
  
• Sklar on Jonah: "The theme of the book of Jonah is the Lord as a God of worldwide grace, mercy, and love who desires to save all people. . . . If we remember the tremendous mercy and love the Lord has shown to us in Jesus—we will be filled with mercy and love for others and a desire that they experience the same. But if we forget, it will not be long before we find our hearts to be the same as Jonah's, just as lacking in compassion and love" (389, 393). 
  
  
• Dempster on Micah 1:2–7: "This is the most awesome vision of God's transcendence in the collection, and thus it was not accidentally chosen to begin the sequence of speeches the book contains. The image is of God as a divine King leaving his throne room and descending to earth to walk its heights. The mountains melt like wax before a fire, and the valleys dissolve like water rushing down a slope. Nothing can stand before such awesome transcendence" (437). 
  
  
• Timmer on Nahum: "Hope and joy are interrelated themes in Nahum, as well as elsewhere in Scripture. Joy takes account of future as well as present good, while hope looks forward to what will one day become a reality. Nahum encourages both" (509). 
  
  
• DeRouchie on Zephaniah: "The book of Zephaniah is the Savior's summons to satisfaction" (563). 
  
  
• Ortlund on Malachi: "Christian disciples in the new covenant occupy a redemptive-historical situation similar to that of Malachi's audience. Just as the Judahite community was heir to earlier prophetic promises of restoration, yet struggled with poverty and the difficulty of rebuilding their lives after the exile, so Christians often struggle with a sense of dissonance between their victory through Christ and the present reality of their lives. . . . Malachi addresses each of these situations by reminding the people of what they already know (as taught by Moses) and looking forward to the day of the Lord" (733–34). 

Perhaps a missed opportunity is the omission of any discussion of these books as part of the "book of the Twelve" or even as a group of Minor Prophets. This is especially pronounced because in the introduction of each commentary unit there is a section that is about a given book's "relationship to the rest of the Bible and to Christ." In these sections, the authors helpfully discuss a wide range of biblical-theological themes and some of the most direct connections to the NT. However, there is not much discussion in any of these sections about any relationship to any of the other 12 Minor Prophets. To give just one example, the section on Jonah 4 does not mention Nahum, and the commentary on Nahum 1 does not mention Jonah (although each are directly about the fate & spiritual state of Nineveh and each allude to Exod 34!). 

This is not really a critique of the interpretive comments in these studies and the rest (which are insightful and helpful), but perhaps simply a textual avenue to note for anyone studying these books. 

Some Notes:

• See details on the other volumes in the ESV Expository Commentary series; Cf. my goodreads post & reviews of other volumes in this series; Thanks to Crossway for this review copy.