The Hodder Bible Commentary: Ecclesiastes

How can we live well in a world that can feel meaningless? Ecclesiastes invites us to face the hard truth that our lives are very brief and mostly out of our control. But that doesn't mean God leaves us to despair.

In this searching and uplifting commentary, Eric Ortlund helps us see that our earthly lives are gifts from God. This life may be brief and frustrating, but it is good - and deeply worth treasuring.

About the Hodder Bible Commentary

The Hodder Bible Commentary is a comprehensive 50-volume Bible commentary series. Doctrinally sensitive and globally aware, its goal is to encourage a deepened knowledge and understanding of Scripture.

Accessible and insightful expository commentary explores the timeless message of the Bible and applies it to the challenges of today's world. Written by a range of authors and supported by consultant editors from around the world, it represents a diversity of church and cultural contexts.

With the full text of the NIV Bible interspersed with the commentary for easy reference, this series is ideal for preaching, teaching and personal study.

Eric Ortlund has given us a precious gift in this new commentary on Ecclesiastes. Page after page is full of deep insight into both the text and the world around us. He combines the kind of a scholar with the heart of a pastor and-more than that-a friend. This will help us profoundly understand Ecclesiastes, and therefore life itself. -- Sam Allberry, Associate Pastor, Immanuel Nashville; author, James For You.
What is good for human beings? Eric Ortlund helps readers perceive Qohelet's answer to this perennial question. With skill and unusual clarity, he demystifies the wisdom of Ecclesiastes, inviting readers to embrace both the frustrations and the joys of earthly life within divinely imposed limits. Like Qohelet's observations, Ortlund's readings of and reflections on Ecclesiastes are penetrating, painful, and healing. Ortlund refuses to sugar-coat the vanity and frustrations of life. And he refuses to minimize Qohelet's recognition of the giftedness of life in God's good creation. I cannot wait to share Ortlund's wise reading of Ecclesiastes with my students. -- Christopher B. Ansberry, Associate Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies, Grove City College, USA
This is a delightful commentary on a book of Holy Scripture which so many find incomprehensible at best and disheartening at worst, and for this Eric Ortlund deserves our gratitude. You will find in here not only a clear path through the riddles and conundrums of Ecclesiastes but also a faithful guide to wisdom and joy in life with Christ east of Eden. The attention to the text is close and profound, the awareness of our finitude as human creatures is deeply felt in the heart, and so the result is a help to reading Ecclesiastes that is as absorbing and rich as it is pastoral and edifying. I learned a great deal and expect to return to these pages to keep doing so. -- David Gibson, Minister of Trinity Church, Aberdeen, Scotland.

Eric Ortlund is Lecturer in Old Testament and Biblical Hebrew at Oak Hill Theological College in London. He has written commentaries on Esther and Malachi, and two books on Job: Suffering Wisely and Well: The Grief of Job and the Grace of God (Crossway), and Piercing Leviathan: God's Defeat of Evil in the Book of Job (NSBT).

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