Dale Ralph Davis – Judges [Book Review]

Such a Great Salvation

(Christian Focus, 1990 / 2006)

So Mark’s been banging on about DRD for ages. Add to this David McCullough and John George and I thought that I better actually read this dude for myself…

This is a devotional commentary, along the same lines as Let’s Study except most of the chapters are quite long. There probably isn’t a more depressing book in the Bible than Judges, in terms of the people of God becoming more and more depraved – but that’s just an opportunity for God to show His mercy over and over again. As the back of the book says, there’s a lot in Judges ‘the church can barely stomach’ but Davis just accepts the Scriptures at face value and doesn’t try and explain them away. However at the same time he doesn’t get caught up in all the battles and interesting characters, but constantly tries to show what God is doing through all the events of Judges. This is a fantastic book by a funny guy and after reading this, Davis’ other books in the series (on Joshua, 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings) are immediately on my ‘must read’ list. He’s a real champion of the Old Testament. The following, on Judges 10:16b, is a good summary:

‘He could bear Israel’s suffering no longer.’ Many Christians, especially those who have a lively sense of God’s severity but little of his kindness, should meditate on this text. You must see Yahweh’s heart. And don’t forget where he showed it to you; in the Old Testament, the book of the grace of God.

Highly recommended.

Usable with STS? Yeah. You’ll have to divide up DRD’s chapters into seizable portions as you go along but that’s do-able easily enough as each of his chapters tend to take things chronologically. Also, I found STS rather disappointing towards the end of Judges, compared with DRD, they seemed to be completely missing the point at times.

One thought on “Dale Ralph Davis – Judges [Book Review]

  1. Yes Dave Ralph Davis is a most interesting commentator. Greg MacDonald recommended him to me ages ago, when I initially started reading his commentary on 1 Kings he did my head in with his Americanism, so much so that I thought ‘Greg must be ought of his mind if he likes this bloke’. But after perservering I changed my mind and read the one on 2 Kings as well (which is even better). Readers should note that Dale Ralph Davis is highly recommended by such giants as Rev. John Hawthorne, Simon Sweeny, Phillip Moffet and Derek Petrie.

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