The Literary Structure of the Old Testament: A Commentary on Genesis-Malachi

"Valuable as a one-volume resource for anyone attempting to analyze the structure of OT books."-- Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
In modern writing, a variety of written markers--italics, bold type, punctuation, parentheses, and so forth--are used to indicate emphasis and clarify meaning. The authors of the Old Testament could not rely on such devices since their writings were originally composed for oral presentation. They instead used literary structure to highlight certain ideas and to convey meaning and emphasis accurately. Unfortunately, as we read the Old Testament we frequently overlook this inherent literary structure. What we need is a guide to help us see the literary structure that permeates the Old Testament and clarifies the meaning of each Old Testament book. David Dorsey has provided such a guide.
The author opens the book with a brief historical survey of the various approaches to understanding the structure of the Old Testament. He examines what is meant by the term literary structure and gives examples of how the structure of a given text illuminates the author's writing, meaning, and purpose.
Dorsey then proceeds book-by-book through the entire Old Testament identifying the structure and offering commentary as to how that structure clarifies the meaning of the text. He illuminates the big picture of each book, providing a framework for further study. No pastor, teacher, or student should embark upon the study of an Old Testament text without consulting this indispensable guide.