Howard, a conservative scholar has written one of the five best commentaries I've seen on Joshua (Hess, Woudstra, Butler, and Harris are the others). Howard and Hess are probably the best of the five. [I have not yet seen the commentaries by Hubbard or McConville & Williams, but based upon their previous work, I suspect their contributions will also be impressive]. Howard's introduction is very helpful (especially his discussions of history and theology). His comments on the text itself are insightful. The excursuses are interesting and helpful.

The book of Joshua is one of the most fascinating yet under preached on books of the Bible. I say that it is under preached on due to most preachers fear of preaching a long-drawn-out exegetical series on the entire book rather than just preaching on the most well-known parts. Due to this need to preach on the book of Joshua exegetically, a exegetical commentary is needed. One of the best exegetical commentaries is that of the New American Commentary (NAC) produced by B&H publishing. This Commentary series is respected in both hire scholarship as well as in popular understanding. For this series combines the best of scholarship with practical applications. It is therefore easy to understand why B & H selected David M. Howard, Jr. to be the author of such an important volume.

This volume begins with a 50 page introductory section which is the envy of most commentaries. It is also important to note that Howard does not focus his entire introductory section on the authorship or sources of Joshua. Furthermore in this introductory section Howard gives a great detailed outline of the book of Joshua, which an exegetical preacher can use as a outline to preach from as well as a great excursus on the themes shown in the book of Joshua. With regard to the commentary proper, Stuart deals with each verse in turn. He make sure that the student of scripture will be able to understand the book of Joshua and its original context as well as its interconnections to the rest of scripture as a whole. Furthermore there are invaluable application insights scattered throughout this work.

There are a few sections I am a little disappointed with, the first deals with the commentary on the killing of other nations. It is not that the commentary is not phenomenal rather I found it much too brief to be a great detailed depth if one would preach more than a handful of sermons on the these chapters. I therefore recommend this commentary highly amongst a packed field of worthy exegetical commentaries.

These books was provided to me free of charge from B&H Academic Press in exchange for an unbiased, honest review.