Jeremiah for Everyone

Author John Goldingay
Publisher SPCK  £9.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9780281061389

Goldingay’s mammoth project of commentaries on the Old Testament has reached the major prophets. Jeremiah has had a bad press, but with Goldingay’s assistance we can find our way through its confusing structure and come to distinguish the themes of its fifty-three chapters. We find that it’s not all doom and gloom, but the many parts that are have different targets and different emphases. Just don’t try and read it straight through all at once.

As usual in the series, Goldingay provides his own readable translation, but in order to fit everything into one volume the amount of commentary, excellent though it is, has had to be much reduced. The translation has some quirky moments, with ‘Thus says the Lord of Hosts’ becoming ‘Yahweh armies have said this’, and ‘Says the Lord’ becomes ‘Yahweh’s declaration’. One gets used to it.

PETER THORNTON

Old Testament Commentary