New Interpreter's Bible
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WOO HOO !!!
:-)
Fred
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Odd set up for Logos having all 12 volumes in one file, but just glad to have it in Logos.
-dan
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Dan Francis said:
Odd set up for Logos having all 12 volumes in one file, but just glad to have it in Logos.
-dan
Not that it matters (I guess it may), but I was expecting 12 volumes like the Expositor's Bible Commentary, but this one comes 12 volumes in 1. Oh well, at least it's searchable and it appears in the passage guide. I have already prioritized it and it's one of my top 3 complete Bible commentaries (OT/NT). I'm going to really use it in the next 3 to 4 weeks to see if it suits my needs, but so far it looks like a keeper. [Y] I'm not really having second thoughts about it like I did with the NIDB...Boy that was a total saga trying to decide whether to get it or not and once I got it whether to keep it or not and then finally decided I didn't really need it...hehehe [:P]
DAL
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How do you like this set compare to Expositor's bible commentary or others similar set commentaries?
Is it a problem when they put all 12 volumes into 1 file? (e.g. hard to use...)
Thanks in advance.
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The set up of the NIB is more like Word Biblical (critical commentary then explanation or in NIB case Reflections. Personally I would generally find the comments of the NIB a little more in depth than Expositor's. I will use Psalm 131 as an example.
Y. Psalm 131: Contentment with God
OVERVIEW
This is one of the Songs of Ascents (see Overview, Ps 120). The writer shares his own experience with God as an encouragement to the community (v. 3). In form it is an individual psalm of confidence.
A Confession of Dependence and Humble Trust (131:1–3)
A song of ascents. Of David.
1 My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.
COMMENTARY
1 In the MT the psalm begins with an emphatic reference to Yahweh: “O Yahweh, my heart.” In the presence of the covenantal God, the psalmist has experienced how wonderful complete submission to God is. Submission implies an attitude of humility (cf. Mic 6:8). The opposite of humility is “haughty eyes” and a preoccupation “with great matters” (v. 1). The proud person looks, compares, competes, and is never content. He plans and schemes in his heart as to how he can outdo and outperform. The godly know that true godliness begins in a “heart” that is not proud (cf. Pr 18:12), with eyes that do not envy (cf. 18:27; 101:5; Pr 16:5), and with a walk of life (MT, “I do not walk”; NIV, “I do not concern myself”) that is not preoccupied with “greatness” (cf. Jer 45:5) or accomplishments (“wonderful,” i.e., “difficult” or “arduous”; cf. Dt 17:8; 30:11).
2–3 The psalmist has been like a child in the presence of God. Oh, the wonder of quiet contentment with God! He has enjoyed the walk with God in which he “stilled” (“composed”) himself and “quieted” (i.e., “silenced” or “found rest,” 62:1, 5) his soul (v. 2).
The psalmist was also like “a weaned child.” The age of the child in the simile of the “weaned child” (gāmul) should not be stressed. The word gāmul may also mean “contented” (cf. W. A. VanGemeren, “Psalm 131:2-kᵉgāmul: The Problem of Meaning and Metaphor,” HS 23 [1982]: 51–57). The suggestion is sometimes made that a weaned child is no longer restless when it is with its mother because it no longer frets for milk. But a baby satisfied with its mother’s milk can also lie contented on its mother’s breast. The essential picture is that of contentment, regardless of age. So the psalmist feels a deep sense of peace, tranquility, and contentment with his God. Gottfried Quell (“Struktur und Sinn des Psalms 131,” in Das Ferne und Nahe Wort, ed. Fritz Maas [Berlin: Topelmann, 1967], 173–85) suggests that the psalmist speaks of the experience of children being carried by their mothers on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Based on his wonderful relationship and walk with the Lord, David calls on Israel to trust in the Lord forevermore (cf. 130:7).
Willem VanGemeren, Psalms, ed. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland, vol. 5 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary Revised Edition. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 923-924.
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Psalm 131:1–3, Like the Weaned Child That Is with Me
COMMENTARYPsalm 131 is the twelfth of the Songs of Ascents (see Overview on Psalms 120–134). The repetition of the exhortation to hope (Pss 130:7; 131:3) indicates that Psalms 130 and 131 should be read together. Furthermore, Psalm 130 calls for a posture of humility that Ps 131:1–2 eloquently expresses. The metaphor of a child with its mother is not unexpected in a collection that may have derived from or been used by groups of pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem (see Overview on Psalms 120–134) and that displays elsewhere a concern with families and children (see Pss 122:8; 127:3–5; 128:3, 6; 133:1). Even so, v. 2 is striking, because a straightforward translation of v. 2c (see NRSV) suggests that the psalmist is almost certainly a woman. Several scholars even suggest that Psalm 131 may have originally been uttered by a woman as she carried her young child along the way to Jerusalem, perhaps even up the steps toward the Temple. While it is difficult to be too confident about such specific proposals, it is clear that the imagery in v. 2 involves the experience of a mother and child; most likely, the psalm was authored by a mother on the basis of her own experience of comforting children. Other songs and prayers were, of course, written and spoken by women in various contexts (see Exod 15:20–21; 1 Sam 2:1–10; Jdt 16:1–7; Luke 1:47–55).
131:1. The psalm begins with a series of three negatives that eschew pride and arrogance. The word “heart” (לב lēb, which could also be translated “mind”) in the first clause suggests internal matters; the psalmist is free of destructive pride and haughty thoughts (see 1 Sam 2:3; 2 Chr 26:16; 32:25; Pss 101:5; 138:6; Prov 16:5; 18:12; Ezek 28:2, 5, 17; Hos 13:6). The word “eyes” (עינים ʿĕnayim) in v. 1b suggests external things; raised or haughty eyes are associated in Prov 6:16–19 with destructive behaviors (see Prov 21:4; Isa 2:11; 5:15). In other words, the psalmist affirms that in both thought and deed, she has been humble. The words the NIV translates as “great matters” and “things too wonderful” are ordinarily understood to designate arrogant, self-centered pursuits that the psalmist properly avoided. This may be the correct interpretation, but Miller points out that these words elsewhere refer almost exclusively to God’s great and wonderful works. Therefore, he suggests that the third clause of v. 1 may well indicate the “inappropriateness on the part of the woman and mother to care about and bother with theology,” and he considers it likely that v. 1 is “an indication of the role restrictions placed upon women in the patriarchal structure of Israelite society.” Indeed, this restriction may account, at least in part, for the struggle implied in v. 2—that is, the woman’s need to find a calmness of soul, a peace of mind and heart, that is denied her by her social setting.
131:2. The woman finds peace in her acceptance by and dependence upon God. The grammatical construction that begins v. 2 is emphatic. Despite restrictive circumstances—ones that perhaps made humility as much coercion as choice—the psalmist affirms that she really has found a certain equilibrium (the first verb in v. 2 seems to mean literally “to be even,” “to be smooth”) and security with God, like her child (a member, of course, of another devalued class in the ancient world as well as the modern world) has found with her. The child is not an infant but a “weaned child.” Having once found acceptance and satisfaction (the Hebrew root of “weaned child” [גמל gml] means fundamentally to “deal fully with”) and nurture at the mother’s breast, the weaned child returns for comfort and security to the mother’s loving embrace.
131:3. As Mays points out, “Verse 2 prepares for and interprets verse 3.” In short, the image of the loving, comforting mother embracing her needy child portrays Israel’s hope (see Deut 1:31; Isa 66:13; Jer 31:20; Hos 11:1–9). The vulnerable God (see Commentary on Psalm 130), whose choices are restricted by the rebellious stance of the wicked (see Ps 129:1–2) and by the iniquities of God’s own people (see Ps 130:3, 8), will finally do nothing other than lovingly embrace God’s children, including both the victims of pain and those who by their iniquities have inflicted pain upon other people and upon God. Such incomprehensible love and amazing grace are the hope of Israel and of the world (see Ps 130:7)—then, now, and forever (see Pss 121:8; 125:2).
REFLECTIONS1. Remarkable in its beauty and its brevity, Psalm 131 performs the valuable service of eloquently enlarging the stock of metaphors that most people ordinarily use for understanding God—God is the loving, compassionate, comforting mother, who, although regularly pained and aggrieved and fatigued by her own children, welcomes them back into her arms and bears them up along a difficult way (see above on Ps 25:6). As for the human side, Psalm 131 commends the style of life that the psalms regularly describe as “righteous” and “happy”—utter trust in and childlike dependence upon God for life and future (see Commentary on Psalms 1; 2). Thus, for the Christian reader, Psalm 131 cannot help being a reminder that Jesus performed the mother’s role of Psalm 131 as he took children into his arms and commended them as models for entrance into the reign of God (Matt 18:1–4; Mark 9:33–37; 10:13–16).
2. Consider further the probability that as a woman in a patriarchal society, the psalmist’s humility was in some sense forced upon her (see above on v. 1). That the psalmist’s experience of oppression impelled her to seek and find comfort with God should in no sense be taken as justification for oppression. Rather, Psalm 131 gives us a glimpse of the beginnings of women’s experience of equality in God’s sight. It is no coincidence that as he proclaimed and embodied the reign of God, Jesus readily accepted and befriended women and children (see Mark 9:33–37; 10:13–16; 15:40–41; John 20:11–18). Therefore, it is not surprising that in a remarkable reversal of social practices in the ancient Near Eastern world, women were among the leaders of the early church (see Acts 18:26; Rom 16:1, 3; 1 Cor 16:19). In short, as she experienced the liberating acceptance of God, the humble and humbled psalmist experienced the revolutionary, hopeful good news that to be set free by God means never to be a slave again to human masters. The only proper master of humans is God, the recognition of whose sovereignty creates, not patterns of human domination, but a community of sisters and brothers who are mutually servants, each of the other (see Mark 10:41–45; Gal 3:28).
J. Clinton Mccann Jr., “The Book of Psalms,” in New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander E. Keck, vol. 4 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994–2004), 1207–1209.-------------------
-Dan
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Thanks in advance.
I bought it. Yes, good commentary set.
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Dan Francis said:
Odd set up for Logos having all 12 volumes in one file, but just glad to have it in Logos.
-dan
But you know what? The new set up worked out perfectly when it came to downloading it into my iPad. Now I have a great complete set of commentaries to read when I'm on the go on my iPad. Maybe they can do the same for the EBC (both editions) since it's more than likely they will never break those sets into individual volumes (I could be wrong, though).
DAL
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I have it downloaded the NIB both my iPhone and iPad in Logos so I am happy now... (Now I just have to transfer all my highlights over to NIB in Logos) [;)]
-Dan
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I am so very grateful to have NIB available on the iPad. I was able to read NIB while laying in bed this evening; something I could never have done with the bound edition due to its size.
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Can anyone get this to come up in the topic guide?
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Clint Scott said:
Can anyone get this to come up in the topic guide?
My guess is additional tagging may need to be done. The NIDB we are told will not appear there till additional tagging gets completed.
-Dan
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What is the Support Info for this file? Maybe that will explain it...Clint Scott said:
Can anyone get this to come up in the topic guide?0
