Readers of Word & World have known forever that Terry Fretheim is an acute, reliable, generative reader of Old Testament texts with a sure critical grounding and an alert theological sensibility. And so it will be no surprise that Fretheim's uncommon gifts are once again on exhibit in this magisterial commentary, to the delight and benefit of his readers. Readers of the journal, however, may not be familiar with the new Smyth & Helwys commentary series in which this volume is one of the earlier publications. The series from the newly organized press is a most ambitious one that has recruited recognized and reliable scholars to provide critical grounding in the biblical text, but then to focus upon "connections" (a technical term in the series) that will be of use to teachers and preachers in the church and of benefit to a church that is willing to study. The push toward "connections," as intended by the series and in the hands of Fretheim, is no popularization or trivialization but a move beyond the usual historical questions to show the ways in which the text still speaks, in the matrix of faith, to contemporary readers.

The series is further enhanced by the imaginative use of "boxes" (another technical term in the series) that permits the commentator to employ a series of insets to cite other authors, make extrabibical connections, present representations in the history of religious art, or quote other materials. The result is an impressive, elegant commentary of the size and proportion of the Hermeneia series but--unlike the Hermeneia series--fully accessible to readers who are not overburdened with technical capacity. It goes without saying that Fretheim has made splendid use of the inventive format of the series so that his "connections" are rich and suggestive and the "boxes" offered provide contact with Berrigan and Bonhoeffer and a host of others from Fretheim's rich reservoir of resources. The format of the series is peculiarly suited to Fretheim's sensibilities and gifts, so that the commentary shows Fretheim, an exquisite theological interpreter, at his most exquisite.

Fretheim is, of course, on the front edge of critical study. A major shift has occurred in Jeremiah studies so that the "final form of the book" is taken to be addressed to the generation of exiles sometime after the period of the person Jeremiah. One consequence of this shift in perspective is that all the interpretive energy is no longer given to the earlier part of the book, to the materials that were commonly regarded as "authentic" from Jeremiah.

Now proportionate attention is given to the latter part of the book, that is undoubtedly later and that takes a big interpretive step beyond the horizon of the historical Jeremiah. Fretheim takes full account of this new perspective and, consequently, attends to the theological resources in the book that have long been underappreciated.

In the end, Fretheim is a theologian, and he attends finally to the character of God as given in the textual tradition. He is fully informed by the defining work of Abraham Heschel on pathos, and draws upon his own earlier important work on divine suffering. Out of that background, he pays attention to the pathos, power, and wrath of God that receive their most acute articulation in the tradition of Jeremiah. The commentary is especially suggestive concerning the "lamentations of Jeremiah" that bespeak the prophet's own pathos that is deeply congruent with God's own pathos in regard to the destiny of beloved Israel. In reading the text with Yahweh as a genuine character in the plot of the book, the commentary provides uncommon resources for the church in a technological society that wants to silence pathos and censor any "underneathness" that may be present in either God or in humankind. A technological society, perhaps like the ancient dominant society in Jerusalem, wants to silence anything that would disrupt autonomous well-being. Fretheim shows the ways in which the rhetorical strategies of the book were theologically subversive in the sixth century and suggests the ways in which these strategies continue to be subversive in our contemporary context that has all too much in common with that ancient time.

This commentary is a "must" for any serious Bible student. Its publication will of course enhance the series. Beyond that, this commentary will be a durable marker in our new learning of ways in which to be critical and theologically contemporary at the same time. Fretheim and Smyth & Helwys are to be congratulated on this publication. It pleases me to observe that I have been one of Terry's conversation partners in his preparation of the commentary, even if often a foil for his own alternative judgment. Fretheim has been among my most important conversation partners for a very long time. It is now a delight on my part to commend his book and to congratulate him for an uncommon piece of research that shows how the best "guild work" and the best "church work" readily converge when there are ample portions of learning, imagination, and discipline.

Copyright 2002 Word & World Journal. Reproduced by permission from the Fall 2002 issue of Word & World.