What are the pros and cons of the EP study Commentary?
What exactly, pray tell does "EP" refer to?
I'm old enough to see it as "Extended Play" (vs LP or "Long Play") and I am fairly sure that was not your meaning.
Link to the resource?
What are the pros and cons of the EP study Commentary? What exactly, pray tell does "EP" refer to? I'm old enough to see it as "Extended Play" (vs LP or "Long Play") and I am fairly sure that was not your meaning. Link to the resource?
Evangelical Press = EP
https://www.logos.com/product/222274/evangelical-press-study-commentary-epsc
DAL
Evangelical Press = EP https://www.logos.com/product/222274/evangelical-press-study-commentary-epsc DAL
Thank you DAL. At least I now know.
Christian, I'm sorry but I can not give you an informed answer as I have not used these commentaries before. Honestly the Pros and Cons list would be an individual thing. What may be a Pro for me could very well be a Con for you. Remember that any list you may get will be from that person's point of view.
BestComm's says: "‘The EP Study Commentary series fills a needed gap in contemporary biblical commentary. The volumes in this series evidence and model careful biblical exposition and biblically grounded application in service of the church. They do so in such a way as to be able to profit pastors, teachers, and readers without specialized theological training alike.’Dr Guy Waters, Professor of New Testament, Reformed Theological Seminary"
Sample
The first plague: the Nile changed to blood
(Exodus 7:14–25)
The plague sequence commences with God striking the Nile river. Why did God bring judgements upon Egypt, beginning with the changing of the Nile to blood? The answer is suggested in the words of the Greek historian Herodotus: ‘For even though a man has not before been told, he can at once see, if he have sense, that that Egypt to which Greeks sail is land acquired by the Egyptians, given them by the river.’10 The idea that Egypt is the gift of the Nile was hardly a new one when Herodotus wrote those words so many centuries ago.11 The ancient Egyptians themselves looked upon the Nile as the primary source of their existence.
In its inundation stage the Nile was considered to be ‘the giver of life to the two lands’, ‘the lord of sustenance’, the one ‘who causes the whole land to live through his provisions’, and the like. The celebrated ‘Hymn to the Inundation’ proclaims:
Hail to your countenance, Hapi,
Who goes up from the land, who comes to deliver Kemet [Egypt] …
Who brings food, who is abundant of provisions,
Who creates every sort of his good things …
Who is enduring of customs, who returns at his due season,
Who fills Upper and Lower Egypt …
Everything that has come into being is [through] his power;
There is no district of living men without him.12
All the blessings of Egypt evaporate when the Nile cannot supply its goods. Thus Yahweh attacks Egypt at the very heart of her existence.
7:14. Then Yahweh said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh’s heart is heavy; he is refusing to send out the people.’
A third Hebrew term is now engaged to present the nature of Pharaoh’s heart.13 It is kābēd, which in its most basic sense means ‘to be heavy’. The term is used in a literal quantitative sense: for example, Absalom’s hair (2 Sam. 14:26) and Moses’ hands (Exod. 17:12) were both heavy. But kābēd may also bear a qualitative sense—that is, that something is weighty, or full of a particular quality or trait.14 Therefore, this verse is saying that Pharaoh’s heart is weighted down with something. But what is it?
The idea that ‘Pharaoh’s heart is heavy’ is an intriguing expression in view of the Egyptian background of the New Kingdom period in which the exodus occurred.15 At this time the Egyptians believed that when someone died the person went to judgement in the underworld. The individual’s heart—which was thought to be the very essence of the person—was weighed on the scales of truth. On one pan sat the feather of truth and righteousness; on the other lay the heart of the deceased. If the heart was heavy or weighty with misdeeds, the person was unjust, condemned and thrown to the Devouress to be eaten. If the heart was pure, the deceased would go to the Egyptian afterlife.
In the exodus account the verdict that Pharaoh’s heart was heavy reflects the concept of his heart being filled with iniquity and injustice. His dealings with Israel, and for that matter his own character in general, were unrighteous. God was simply judging Pharaoh as one with a heavy, sinful heart!
7:15. ‘Go to Pharaoh in the morning. Behold, he will be going to the water. And you will stand upon the bank of the Nile to meet him. And you shall take in your hand the rod which was turned into a serpent.’
God responds to Pharaoh’s hardness by commanding Moses to confront the Egyptian king. The Lord employs the imperative ‘Go!’ to direct Moses in his activity.
Moses is told to meet Pharaoh as the king advances to the Nile river at the beginning of the day. The text does not tell us why Pharaoh was going to the water in the morning, although that act seems to have been habitual (cf. 8:20). Perhaps he was merely going for a morning stroll, or maybe even using the Nile for a bath (cf. 2:5). However, it may have been a daily ceremonial or ritual act to pay homage to the god of the Nile. The commencement of the plagues with the act of striking of the Nile waters, and the god personified in them, adds further support to this theological interpretation of Pharaoh’s activity.
The language of this verse is reminiscent of Exodus 2:3–4. In that episode, Moses’ sister ‘stood along the bank of the Nile’ to see what would happen to the child that had been placed in the basket. The reason for the literary parallel is to point out that both scenes serve as the moment of ‘incipient redemption’.16 In the first episode Moses is soon to be delivered from death; in the second the entire nation of Israel is about to be redeemed out of Egypt, the land of death.
7:16. ‘And you shall say to him, “Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you, saying, ‘Send out my people that they might serve me in the wilderness but, behold, you have not listened until now.’ ” ’
A play on words appears in this verse. The verb describing the activity of God in sending Moses to Pharaoh is to ‘send out’. This is the same verb that God employs in commanding Pharaoh to ‘Send out my people’. The latter form, however, is a Piel imperative. The Piel stem is properly understood to mean the putting of something into action.17
7:17. ‘Thus says Yahweh: “In this you will know that I am Yahweh.” Behold, I am striking the waters in the Nile with the rod which is in my hand, and they will change to blood.’
Here begins the announcement of the first plague on Egypt. It starts with the formula denoting divine authority, ‘Thus says Yahweh …’ (see the commentary on 4:22 and 5:1).
God commands Moses to strike the Nile river with his staff and transform its waters to blood. What purpose is there in this activity? To the Egyptians, the Nile in its inundation was deified and personified as the god Hapi. In reliefs, Hapi is pictured as a bearded man with female breasts and a hanging stomach (signifying pregnancy?), all characteristics that reflect fertility. Egyptian texts speak of Hapi as the one who gave birth to Egypt and sustains it.18 Yahweh confronts this god and defeats it. God is the one who truly gives life and maintains it.
Some scholars want to see this plague as a mere metaphor. In other words, they say the waters only took on the appearance of blood. The red colour was really due to a high inundation that made the river red with sediment.19 However, there is simply no textual support for such an explanation. The biblical author is reporting a transformation of one substance to another. In support of this is the fact that the waters of pools and reservoirs were turned to blood—waters that would not have been affected by an inundation.
7:18. ‘And the fish which are in the Nile will die and the Nile will stink. And the Egyptians will not be able to drink water from the Nile.’
A major consequence of the changing of the Nile to blood was the death of the fish, a staple of the Egyptian diet. The people would be unable to eat or drink from the river. Hapi, therefore, could not supply the people’s needs. This plague, then, served as a demonstration that true sustenance comes only from the hand of Yahweh and not from a false pagan deity venerated by the Egyptians.
7:19. And Yahweh said to Moses, ‘Say to Aaron, “Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, over their streams, and over their pools and over all the reservoirs of water, and they will become blood. And blood will be in all Egypt, on the wooden things and on the stone things.” ’
Three imperatives are used in this verse. The first is God’s command to Moses, which literally says, ‘Speak to Aaron!’ The final two directives are to proceed from Moses to Aaron: ‘Take your staff!’ and ‘Stretch out your hand!’ These expressions denoting volition require immediate and specific action on the part of the person to whom they are addressed. They bear a sense of urgency.
The final sentence of the verse reads literally, ‘Blood will be on all the land of Egypt and on the wooden [things] and stone [things].’ The terms ‘buckets’, ‘jars’, and ‘vessels’ etc. supplied by many translations are not found in the Hebrew text. To what, then, do ‘wooden [things] and stone [things]’ refer? Usually when the terms ‘wood’ and ‘stone’ are employed together they make reference to the physical substance of idols (see, for example, Deut. 28:36, 64; 29:17). Egyptian priests washed the images of their gods in water every early morning.20 Thus, it may be that the water was turning to blood as they poured it on the idols. Perhaps this episode provides another example of mockery at the expense of Egyptian deities.21
7:20–21. And Moses and Aaron did just as Yahweh had commanded. And he lifted up the rod, and he smote the waters which were in the Nile before the eyes of Pharaoh and before the eyes of his servants. And all the waters which were in the Nile changed to blood. And the fish which were in the Nile died, and the Nile smelled. And the Egyptians were not able to drink water from the Nile. And there was blood in all the land of Egypt.
The fact that it happened exactly as God had said underscores the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. Matters simply unfold according to Yahweh’s decree, will and plan.
7:22. But the Egyptian magicians did the same thing with their secret arts. So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened. And he did not listen to them, as Yahweh had said.
Apparently there must have remained a few areas over which Aaron did not stretch out his hand. The Egyptian magicians succeed in transforming those waters to blood: the text is clear as it literally says, ‘And they did thus’, or ‘in like manner’. There is a sense of ironic justice about the success of the magicians. They merely succeeded in adding to the plague against their own people. The sorcerers were seemingly unable to reverse the plague brought by God, but could only intensify it.
The accomplishment of the Egyptian magicians provided Pharaoh with a reason for not turning from his ‘strong heart’. Because the king saw his servants succeeding with their secret arts/magic he no doubt concluded that the Hebrew prophets were using the same sorceries. The changing of the Nile to blood, therefore, did not prove to him the existence or power of Yahweh.
7:23. Then Pharaoh turned and went into his palace. And he did not pay heed to this either.
A common Hebrew phrase is used at the close of this verse: literally, ‘he did not set his heart upon’. This idiom means that Pharaoh paid no heed and gave no attention to the first plague. He saw no differences between the two miraculous transformations of water to blood. This, therefore, signifies an instance of total dismissal. Pharaoh’s heart remained hard, stubborn and strong.
7:24. And all the Egyptians dug around the Nile for water to drink because they were not able to drink from the water of the Nile.
The audience with Pharaoh is completed. An editorial note is added by the biblical author that relates what the Egyptians attempted to do in order to find fresh water. There is, however, no mention of success on the part of the diggers. It appears to have been a scene of futility and desperation.
7:25. And seven days passed after Yahweh struck the Nile.
Some commentators want to interpret this verse to mean that the second plague arrived one week after the first plague came to an end. But the Masoretic Text literally says, ‘And it was filled seven days after Yahweh struck the Nile.’ That may perhaps indicate that the Nile was filled with blood for seven days. Seven is the number that often symbolizes completion in the Bible. That length of time would signify the complete conquest and derision of the river god Hapi by Yahweh.
Chapter 7 of the English Bible ends at this point. The Masoretic Text, however, continues for four more verses. Why the disparity? The division of the Bible into chapters is far from original to the text, having been established in the thirteenth century A.D. by Archbishop Stephen Langton. Chapter divisions first appear in the Paris manuscript of the Latin Bible known as the Vulgate. From the Vulgate, they were later transferred to various manuscripts and editions of the Hebrew Bible. However, the many editions of the Masoretic Text do not always agree with the Vulgate, or with one another, in regard to chapter divisions.22 Here at the end of Exodus 7 we have an example of such a divergence. This commentary will follow the generally accepted divisions of the English Bible.
Application
The entire plague account is a mere foreshadowing of the plagues that will strike the followers of Satan at the end of time (see Rev. 16). It is a model, or paradigm, of judgement that will come upon all unbelievers. The first plague in Egypt is prominently repeated in the end-time. Revelation 16:3–4 describes the second and third bowls of wrath in that light: ‘And the second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man; and every living thing in the sea died. And the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of waters; and they became blood.’ The similarities between this description and the account in Exodus are obvious. The only difference is that the extent and intensity of the plagues in Revelation are so much greater. Thus the episode in the Old Testament is a mere foretaste of what will come upon unbelievers in the final days.
