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DAVID TOSHIO TSUMURA, The First Book of Samuel (NICOT; Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2007). Pp. xxii + 698. $50.
The New International Commentary on the Old Testament is a scholarly series that is eclectic in its approach and evangelical in its overall interpretation. The series and Tsumura's commentary on 1 Samuel regard the Bible as God's inspired Word and in the treatment of the text pay special attention to literary features, theological themes, and lessons for life today. In a lengthy introduction, T. lays out the specifics of how these general guides apply to 1 Samuel. T. follows the MT in most instances, with little recourse to emendation based on other versions, including the Dead Sea Scrolls. He proposes "to read the MT straightforwardly and determine whether... we can make good sense out of the MT itself (p. xi). He does a fine job in this with consistent and appropriate grammatical and syntactical comments throughout the commentary; I think that it is the strongest aspect of his work. But he could have paid more attention to other versions as offering variant or alternate readingsnot as having to...