Author GEORGE A.F. KNIGHT
Publisher Wm. B. EERDMANS
ISBN 0-8028-0599-X
George A, F. Knight was born in Scotland but shifted to Dunedin, New Zealand. He was a Church of Scotland minister who concentrated much on Old Testament studies. Both a lecturer and pastor in Hungary, Scotland, and the United States and he later became Principal of the Pacific Islands Bible College. He passed away in 2003 at the age of ninety-three. He was one of the coeditors of the International Theological Commentary series. These volumes were for the specific use of ministers, educators and students who wanted to move beyond the historical-critical approach to the Old Testament much in vogue in Bible Seminaries throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This particular book concentrates on the song of Moses found in Deuteronomy chapter thirty-two and is subtitled “A Theological Quarry” and Knight proves that this is indeed so. Some will know that the singing of the song of Moses is linked with the singing of the song of the Lamb in the book of the Revelation and the heart of this short Old Testament scholars commentary is to show that the gospel was to be found in the Old Testament scriptures and that Moses was the key figure in the self disclosure God made of Himself and His gospel to His people. There is no disjunction, no disconnection between the Old Testament and the New as has been taught in many quarters. God revealed Himself and His ways to His servant Moses and the prophets who spoke throughout the centuries before Christ and the ministry of the apostles was built upon that revelation of God. This means that much later doctrine and theology was hewn from the quarry of the forty-three verses of the Song of Moses, men like Isaiah and Jeremiah were soaked in what Moses sang! It would have been mainly delivered aurally to the following generations and then, through being enshrined in the writ of the Hebrew scriptures and known and loved and understood as affirming the nature and being of God and His actions in history. Knight brings out these matters in a clear, exciting and thoroughly edifying way. For those of us who had to sit through lectures and read books supporting the view that the God of the Old was different to the God of the New found Knight to be refreshing waters and, in certain respects the writings of men like N.T, Wright have developed these realities further to the help of the churches. Knight authored several other books including the commentaries on Isaiah 40 through 66 and The Song of Songs and Jonah in the ITC series. Probably most of his writings are only available second hand, but well worth obtaining.
