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The Book of Job, by A.B. Davidson

A.B. Davidson’s second Job commentary has had appreciative readers for over a century. He first wrote a commentary on Job in 1862, which with its “profound exegesis” has been called “a landmark in British scholarship”.¹

The commentary noted here (full title: The Book of Job, with Notes, Introduction and Appendix) was first published in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges series in 1884. While not informed by the discovery of the Ugaritic texts from Ras Shamra in the 1930s, Davidson’s exegesis often anticipates their contribution. (Perhaps it means that neither was he distracted by them, either!) As Brevard Childs explains,²

Davidson sees most of the exegetical problems and he faces them as honestly as possible. Moreover, there is a profound theological wrestling with the book throughout his exegesis which provides his work with an enduring richness.

It appeared in a second edition, revised and updated after his death by another editor; it is not clear that this edition improved on Davidson’s work — and it is in any case unavailable in PDF.

Two copies Davidson’s Job are available at Archive.org. The 1889 scan is slightly lighter (and my preferred copy), but the darker 1891 copy is also of good quality.

¹ J.W. Rogerson, ‘Davidson, Andrew Bruce (1831–1902)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

² B.S. Childs, Old Testament Books for Pastor & Teacher (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977), p. 58.