Review of: Arseniy (Sokolov), hegumen. Kniga proroka Osii. Kommentariy [The Book of Prophet Hosea. A Commentary]. Moscow: Izdatelskiy dom «Poznanie», 2019 (Studies of Old Testament). 640 p. ISBN 978-5-906960-75-7

Abstract

The urgent need for a commentary on the Book of Hosea is evidenced by the text of this biblical book in its Masoretic version: full of ambiguous metaphors, vivid artistic images, which abruptly, without any introduction, are replaced by one another, this text, not always well preserved, poses many problems to exegetes even today. Speaking of "the experience of interpretation", it should be noted that this is far from the author's first approach to the text. This commentary was preceded by several years of scholarly activity in this area, marked by a number of publications, the publication of a commentary on the first three chapters of the Book of Hosea, and testing the results of research work in a special seminar on the book of the commented prophet. The commentary was the fruit of this lengthy research effort. The annotation addresses the book to "all who seek the study of the Holy Scriptures". And this address is justified, since, having only the book of Hosea as one of the "minor prophets", the author considers it in the context of other prophetic books and, more broadly, of the Old Testament and the entire Bible. Such an approach enables the lay reader, for example, to learn about Israelite profanity or to touch the world in which the biblical books appeared, the world of the Ancient East. The book's quality of proof-reading is one of its unquestionable strengths.