From Exegesis to
Exposition: A Practical Guide to Using Biblical Hebrew by Robert B. Chisholm,
Jr.
Most students of Biblical Hebrew end their first year’s
study with a sense that there are tremendous exegetical riches in a knowledge
of Hebrew, yet the amount of time and work required to mine those riches seems
vastly disproportionate to the tangible results. From Exegesis to Exposition is designed to help the
seminary-trained pastor to “preach accurate, informative, and even exciting
sermons that are solidly rooted in the Hebrew text and do not require an inordinate
amount of time to prepare” (back cover).
Assuming a knowledge of Hebrew grammar basics, Robert
Chisholm focuses each chapter on a critical element of Hebrew exegesis:
language tools (ch. 2), textual criticism (ch. 3), word studies (ch. 4), syntax
(ch. 5-6), and literary features of Hebrew narrative and poetry (ch. 7).
Chapters eight and nine present an exegetical and homiletical method for moving
from the text to the sermon. The final chapter offers exercises that, with
detailed guidance, step the reader through the entire exegetical process in
several narrative and poetic passages. Suggestions for further reading and
reference are appended to chapters 3-7, and both general and scripture indices
are included.
After the first chapter’s challenge regarding the
importance of using one’s Hebrew training in the ministry, Chisholm’s second
chapter offers the reader helpful analyses of the major translation aids,
lexical, grammatical, and syntactical tools, and original language computer
programs. The author gives a noteworthy analysis of the limitations of BDB’s lexicon. Similar mention of the
linguistic weaknesses and strongly liberal perspective in the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament
would have been appropriate as well. Two omissions from the standard Hebrew
toolbox are a bit surprising: no mention is made of
In chapter three, Chisholm works through text-critical
problems in eight passages, explaining the rationale behind each of his
decisions. Along the way he provides the student with a helpful introduction to
the cryptic notes and symbols of the BHS apparatus.
Unfortunately, his presentation of text-critical principles and practice is
weakened by an overemphasis on internal criteria,[1]
an insufficiently nuanced use of the LXX,[2]
and a feeble demonstration of the exegetical value of the variants discussed.
With an abundance of examples, chapter four provides a
concise, helpful discussion of word meaning and study. It covers usage and
meaning, polysemism and multiple referents, common word study errors, semantics
fields and synonyms, and other key aspects of Hebrew semantics. One problem
mars this chapter’s otherwise excellent discussion of semantics. On pages
33-34, Chisholm fails to distinguish a word’s meaning from its referent(s), and
appears to have confused them. He notes that Hebrew words such as ’ab, ra‘,
and lachats have “multiple
referents.” After giving examples that reflect not only differing referents,
but also differing senses, he concludes, “As one can see from these examples,
many words are polysemantic.” ’ab is
indeed polysemous (“having many meanings”), but it is not polysemous because it
has multiple referents. Each of its senses, in fact, has multiple referents. It
is polysemous because it has multiple senses or meanings.
Chapter five is sixty page survey of basic Hebrew syntax
with each section cross-referenced to the standard works on syntax: Gesenius-Kautzsch and Waltke and
O’Connor. This chapter has great potential for helping a student get into
Hebrew syntax without drowning in the details of GK or W-O. Its explanations are
to the point and at least one illustration is given for each element discussed.[3]
Chisholm’s treatment of the verb system follows GK closely: conjugations
(perfect, imperfect, etc.) do not indicate tense, but aspect. Chapter six
primarily develops what Chisholm considers the main elements of Hebrew
narrative structure: (1) a waw-consecutive
framework, (2) “nonstandard constructions” that deviate from the normal framework,
and (3) embedded quotations and dialogue. What initially sounds like an it may
introduce the student to discourse analysis turns out to be primarily a
presentation of the various uses of the waw-consecutive,
imperfect, waw-imperfect, and waw-perfect
in narrative. It is unfortunate that he fails to recognize that variations from
the expected uses of the conjugations occur only in poetry or narrative direct
discourse. The rare exceptions to this pattern reinforce its value as a system
for understanding the Hebrew verb in narrative.
Chapter seven gives an helpful introduction of the main elements
of narrative and poetic literature. It was refreshing to read Chisholm’s
accurate characterization of certain source- and form-critical tendencies as
“ridiculous . . . [and] symptomatic of such critics’ lack of literary
sensitivity and evidence [of] how rhetorically impoverished their methods
really are” (183). His brief comments on psalm types are notable for being
firmly rooted in the text rather than in form-critical categories.
In chapter eight, Chisholm briefly reviews the exegetical
steps he has developed in the previous chapters and then applies those steps to
three passages:
For anyone with at least one year of Hebrew and a good
measure of motivation, From Exegesis to
Exposition will be of significant help toward using Biblical Hebrew in the
ministry. This book will be most helpful to the student with two or more years
of Hebrew under his belt and to the second year Hebrew teacher who may want to
consider this as a textbook. This book is not a replacement or a competitor of
Kaiser’s Toward an Exegetical Theology.
It complements Kaiser’s development of the theoretical aspects of exegesis with
its concise statements of principle and liberal use of examples.
A. Philip Brown II
[1] This reviewer looked in vain for Chisholm to acknowledge the textual strength of the Massoretic Text. All textual players are not equal, and the MT deserves a heavier weighting than it is accorded here.
[2]
For example, in his analysis of
[3]
After working through the uses of the Hebrew themes, he works through an
example using barak. He concludes
that the reflexive sense of the Hithpael is the best way to understand barak in
[4] For example, he refers to Samson as “a big strong babe hound who obviously got trapped at the end of line the day the brains were handed out” (235).