"Ezra and Nehemiah: The Quest for Restoration" by Dale Ralph Davis. A Review.

 

 

Not many biblical scholars make it the height of their academic work to finally write a commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah. And very few pastors long to do a sermon series on these two books. But there are adventurous souls out there who will take the risk, come what may, and Dr. Dale Ralph Davis has taken that plunge with the 224-page softback, “Ezra & Nehemiah: The Quest for Restoration” published by Christian Focus. This volume is another installment in the “Focus on the Bible Series.” Dr. Davis was Minister in Residence, First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina. Prior to that he was pastor of Woodland Presbyterian Church, Hattiesburg, Mississippi and various other churches through the years. He was also Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi.

 

This readable work is truly a commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah, for their own sakes. Though there are leadership principles to be gleaned, lessons on prayer, and concepts about how public worship is to be engaged, nevertheless, as Davis shows clearly, both books are exalting and honoring “the God who deals in reverses, who restores honor where once there was shame” (25). Further, primarily Nehemiah, but Ezra as well, encourage that genuine faith that “will always rejoice to practice the more plodding kind of obedience” (191).

 

The Author simply works through the book of Ezra, and then Nehemiah sequentially, chapter upon chapter, line upon line, here a little, there a little. But the approach, which honors both books and the work of God exhibited in their pages, helps readers, teachers, and preachers work through the difficulties without drowning in the muck and mire. From dates and personages, to decrees, recitations, and genealogies, the author keeps the reader on task and on target. One will not get lost on side trails that swallow them up in the swamps of minutiae.

 

And readers will leave Ezra and Nehemiah not only better informed, but also both encouraged and challenged. Encouraged in their faith and fidelity as they work through minor characters like Shecaniah and (re)learn that “God seems addicted to raising up and using ‘minor’ characters (…) Praise be to God for the Shecaniahs who go around picking Yahweh’s servants up off the floor” (83).  And challenged in several areas, from our informal worship practices (188), to our misusing preaching “to spew out venom on people who irk” us, “and yet do it so piously under the guise of simply proclaiming ‘the whole counsel of God’” (142). Encouragement abounds aplenty, and challenging corrections and reflections are peppered in these pages appropriately. The whole work is geared toward helping readers, pastors, teachers, and interested students, to fathom the content of Ezra and Nehemiah, and to gain deeply from both books, in the ways they are meant to be gained from.

 

There were several areas that stood out most poignantly to me. For example, the sections on Nehemiah’s harsh prayers where “he does not unload on the mockers; he unloads to God about the mockers.” And then Davis marches on to show how Nehemiah’s hard-hitting prayers are very Christian (124-125). Or how Nehemiah 12:43 helps us to recognize that joy takes its time and is not in a hurry. Joy comes by being deliberate about joy. And joy covets memories (188-189). Or then, earlier, before Ezra arrives and Haggai and Zechariah must speak a severe word to get the people to move, and he observes that sometimes “the Lord must expose our folly before he can encourage us in faithfulness” (49).

 

This is a deeply useful work on Ezra and Nehemiah. Not only would academic Old Testament classes find it useful, but preachers and teachers as well. I would also recommend it to any Christian simply wanting to know more about those two biblical books. You will find the material Davis gives you is not only to increase your learning, but also to draw you up, through repentance and faith and encouragement and hope, to be nearer to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Haggai, Zechariah, Zerubbabel, Shecaniah, Ezra and Nehemiah! I highly recommend the work.

 

My thanks to Christian Focus for sending me a copy to review. I read the whole work with great relish, marked it, and inwardly digested it for this appraisal. Neither the publisher nor the author demanded anything of me but an honest assessment, which I have freely made and freely given.