TIMOTHY ASHLEY, The Book of Numbers. New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993. 667 pp. $34.99 (cloth).
Biblical interpretation these days often makes a distinction
between a hermeneutics of consent and a hermeneutics of suspicion. Timothy
Ashley's The Book of Numbers is an exercise largely in a hermeneutics of consent
as it comments its way through the thirty-six chapters of the book of Numbers.
Numbers, the fourth book of the Bible, recounts the journey of the twelve
tribes of Israel from Mount Sinai to the edge of the promised land of Canaan.
Ashley believes we cannot know much about the redactional prehistory of Numbers
and so chooses to focus on the final form of the text.
The stated goal of this Christian evangelical commentary
series is to strike a balance between technical, in-depth information about the
biblical text and homiletical-devotional suggestions on how to hear the
biblical writer clearly today. Ashley's 667-page commentary on Numbers is
certainly strong on the side of technical information. The book is an
impressive collation of the opinions of numerous previous commentators on
specific textual problems throughout Numbers. This close attention to specific
texts and phrases, however, means that less attention is given to broader
interpretational issues and how the texts of Numbers might be appropriated by
contemporary readers.
After an introduction and a twenty-two-page bibliography,
the commentary moves systematically through the book of Numbers with Ashley's
translation from the Hebrew and an often phrase-by-phrase exposition of the
text. The exposition and numerous footnotes pay detailed attention to matters
of syntax, textcriticism, word studies, history, geography, parallel Old
Testament material and some ancient Near Eastern comparative texts (e.g., the
Deir 'Allah texts and the figure of Balaam in Numbers 22-24). The underlying
motivation that runs through much of this detailed exposition is the desire to
show that the text makes sense, that literary or interpretational tensions and
bumps in the text can be explained as meaningful or reasonable.
This explaining away of textual difficulties, however,
sometimes stretches too far. For example, Ashley's attempt to explain why in
Numbers 12 Miriam is punished and Aaron is not when both seem equally culpable
is less than convincing (p. 227). A question could also be raised about the way
Ashley uses a translational sleight of hand to sidestep the difficulty of
accounting for the arbitrariness of God's anger toward an obedient Balaam in
Numbers 22:22 (p. 454). Apart from these specifics, two larger issues are Ashley's
view of the overall structure of Numbers and his proposal for the overall theme
of the book. Ashley presents two different proposals for the structure of
Numbers, one based on geographical markers in the text-Sinai, Kadesh-barnea,
and the plains of Moab (p. 2)-and a second different structure based on three
themes-orientation, disorientation, and new orientation (p. 8). Setting aside
the problem of one commentary suggesting two different structures for the same
biblical book, I have argued in another work (The Death of the Old and the
Birth of the New: The Framework of the Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch
[Chico, Calif., 19851) that the heart of the structure and movement of Numbers
is defined by the two nearly identical census lists of the twelve tribes of
Israel in chapter 1 and chapter 26. These two census lists divide the book into
the story of the old wilderness generation who will eventually die in the
wilderness (Numbers 1-25) and the story of the new generation who have the hope
of entering the promised land of Canaan (Numbers 26-36).
The issue of structure also relates to Ashley's proposal for
the overall theme of Numbers, namely, that "exact obedience to God is
crucial" (p. ix). For Ashley, Numbers' primary concern is the imperative
demand for human obedience to God. But the focus on the two-generation
structure of Numbers would suggest that the ultimate concern of Numbers is a
declarative announcement of God's faithfulness to promises made to Israel in
spite of a past generation's inability to obey: "Your little ones . . . I
will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have despised"
(Numbers 14:31). Numbers is primarily a book of hope for a new generation
rather than a stickler for obedient exactness. In spite of these reservations,
a reader of Numbers will find much help in this extensive commentary by Professor
Ashley.
DENNIS T. OLSON,
Princeton Theological
Seminary.
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