A Baptist minister’s bookshelf is sacred. It has weathered and worn classics, passed down or purchased secondhand because of their timeless value to preachers he has known. It has old books that he purchased in his seminary days. It has new books based on authors’ or publishers’ reputations, a particular subject covered, or just plain curiosity on the preacher’s part.
The oldest book (not a reprint) in my growing collection is Thoughts on Religious Experience by Archibald Alexander, printed in 1844. I have a set of Broadman and Holman commentaries from my grandfather. I’m adding new books all the time.
A Baptist minister often relies on the recommendations of others when deciding what books to add to his library. That’s why I’ve decided to do periodic book reviews of new titles I’ve added to my library from the standpoint of being a Baptist in the SBC.
Recently, I contacted the good folks up at Zondervan about their new Hearing the Message of Scripture commentary series, and they were kind enough to send me the inaugural volume on Jonah by Kevin J. Youngblood. I read it, and I highly recommend it.
Jonah: God’s Scandalous Mercy
Background information
Both Youngblood and Daniel Block, the General Editor, have strong ties to the SBC. Youngblood got his PhD at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Block used to be a professor there. Block’s commentary on Judges and Ruth in the New American Commentary (NAC) series has been recommended to me by virtually every Baptist minister I know. Youngblood’s inaugural volume in this series shows that he too is a capable scholar.
Review
Most people don’t read commentaries from cover to cover because, as a reference works, they are typically too detailed, too dry, and too long to read straight through. I couldn’t put this one down. For one, the commentary’s scope is limited to the book of Jonah. By comparison, the New American Commentary, NIV Application Commentary, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, and other popular commentary series cover Jonah along with 2, 3, or 4 other minor prophets in one volume. Limiting the scope makes for a better commentary.
The format of the commentary makes it easily navigable and an easy to use tool for sermon preparation. The book of Jonah is divided up into six passages, each of which could easily be turned into a separate sermon that follows the commentary or grouped for a shorter sermon series. In each passage, Youngblood first gives the main idea in one or two sentences. The main idea is clear, accurate, and consistent with what follows in his explanation of the text. Each passage is considered against the context of the book as a whole, and Youngblood shows how the structure of the passage helps communicate the author’s intended message. At the end of his explanation, Youngblood then highlights relevant passages in both the Old and New Testaments and offers salient points that could easily be used to create a sermon outline. Each passage in the commentary is so cohesive that I couldn’t put it down. It’s like one of those 3-foot long Fruit by the Foot ribbon candies I had as a kid; you stick one end in your mouth and keep eating until you get to the end of the wrapper.
The commentary had some features I really enjoyed. The author gives his own translation of the book and explains his word choices, highlights links between specific Hebrew words and their uses in other passages, and shows how the author exploits the range of meaning of some Hebrew words to make comparisons and draw attention to key parts of the plot. In fact, his analysis of the Hebrew is the main reason you should get this book, and his writing is always engaging and never feels stuffy or dry.
My only complaint is that I would have preferred actual Hebrew script when discussing Hebrew words rather than a transliteration. If you know Hebrew, it’s easier to see it in Hebrew script, and if you don’t know Hebrew, the transliteration only serves as a temptation to say, “In the Hebrew…” when you preach.
Summary
Jonah is the Philippians of the Old Testament: its short, familiar, and easy to preach from for a new or young pastor. You might be tempted to think that you don’t need a commentary on it. Youngblood’s volume in the Hearing the Message of Scripture series is so overwhelmingly good that, once you get your hands on it, you won’t feel like you wasted your time or your money. I don’t plan on reading too many commentaries all the way through. I did on this one. And I’ll probably read it through again.
If you have any questions about this commentary, or if you’d like to share your thoughts on your favorite commentary on Jonah, there’s space in the comments for you.
P.S. If you’re interested in purchasing a copy, you can find it on Amazon for about $22.
Thanks for the excellent review Andrew.
I will add that it can also be purchased at fine independent retailers and dedicated bookstore sellers who are disappearing faster than doughnuts when the hot sign is on.
It won’t be long and we’ll all be chaplains for Amazon and Wall Mart.
I’ve been preaching for 30 years. I’m always looking for good scholarly works to consult for preparation and personal study.
Thanks for this!
Question: Did the authors take note of the fact that Jonah’s message was an unconditional prophecy of ruin in 40 days and did they note that it was like shock therapy or a therapeutic paradox?
I’m wondering, Dr. J, if a comparison to shock therapy or therapeutic paradox is essential to proper interpretation of Jonah. It probably has little to do with the original post, which is a review of the commentary, but maybe you have a point to make about how to view the Jonah narrative. What would it be?
Probably, I have a point about how to view the narrative. However, I suspect, mind you, suspect, that as our knowledge expands and deepens, we will gain new perspectives on the meanings of what is stated in the Bible. We read the Book from a strictly straight on way of looking at it, but I am reminded of how John Robinson, the founding pastor of the Pilgrims, who participated by invitation in the Synod of Dordt, stated something to this effect, “Who knows what new light is getting ready to break forth from God’s word?” That quote was a real help to me, especially when I put it in conjunction with Matthew Poole’s comment on I Tim.2, concerning women in ministry. I think Robinson might have had in mind the reality he had encountered with reference to Particular Redemption and perhaps reprobation. A more recent statement concerning predestination by the translator of William Ames’ Marrow of Divinity was a great light to me, namely, “predestination is an invitation to begin one’s spiritual pilgrimage.” I went looking for passages in the Bible that might reflect that idea, and then I did the same for all of the five points of TULIP and reprobation as well. I am still amazed at what I found. The same happened with reference to my views on eschatology. Imagine going from a very restrictive pre-trib, pre-mil, view to that of post millennialism which lasts for a 1000 generations, reaches quadrillions of planets and continues from anywhere from 20,000 to 900,000 years. One question put to me by a layman who did ten years of research in the Baptist church records started me on a course of change. He asked me, “Have you ever thought about the fact that at any one time every last soul on the face of the earth could be the elect of God?” I answered no, because my eschatology would not allow such a possibility. Six or seven years later that man’s question in conjunction with Jonah’s message to the city of Nineveh, “Forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” utterly demolished my view of eschatology. There is more, but I would point out that at that very time, I was getting in trouble all the time at SEBTS over my views on the Bible, i.e., verbal inspiration. I wrote two papers on the subject that really bothered my professors (during that period SEBTS was noted to be the most liberal seminary in the Southern Baptists Convention). One wrote me a letter accusing my of errors in logic, while making at least one himself. The other became so enraged that he ranted and raved against the paper for about a quarter of the period, to the astonishment of several students in the class, including myself, since I did not know what his viewpoint was. Along the way, I piced up on the idea (in my own studies and reflections) that, if the Bible was inspired by Omniscience, it must follow that it must reflect the depth of wisdom commensurate with such origin. That idea would become a guide for me, making me careful about picking my way through what the Bible teaches. There was also the view of a Puritan who said the biggest problem we have with the Bible is its perspicuity or, as we would say, its clarity, and the experience of a friend gave me the clue. He had almost drowned in water so clear that he could see the grains of sand rolling along the bottom which led him to think the mountain stream was only 2-3 feet deep, when, in fact, it was 18-20 feet deep. The same could be said for Holy Scripture.
The author does talk about the conditionality of prophecy and how Jonah reveals that this was his understanding of God’s intentions all along in 4:2, which would have been later reflected in Jeremiah 18:7-10. The author relates this conditionality to the nature of God’s mercy and justice. He doesn’t couch it in terms of psychiatry.
Dear Andrew: The conditionality to which you refer was not evident to the populace of Nineveh. Jonah did not declare that fact to them. He simply stated that the city would be destroyed in forty days. Everyone apparently understood that this was an unconditional message of judgment. The King’s statements are indicative: “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not.”(Jonah 3:9). Also, if you will note that Jonah did not want the city spared, or so it would seem. The reason was, of course, that Nineveh was an enemy of his people, and apparently Jonah wanted them destroyed, including the children and animals. Consider how he got mad at God, because his prophecy did not turn out as he wanted (though he knew it would be the other way). Could it be that the rule was this: If a prophet prophecies a prophecy and it does not come to pass, he is to be stoned to death? Could it also be that Jonah wanted to die, when he saw his prophecy produce the results of which he had spoken back in his country? The idea of shock therapy and therapeutic paradoxes would, of course, have been known to God long before man became aware of them in the period in which we now live (though that is not to say there were not other times in which man became aware of them). Conditionality can also be a cover for anxiety lest it be discovered that man can not perform the demand. In other words, some are concerned that God must not ask or demand the impossible, when, in fact, He does (Mk.10).