The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are important in appreciating the background to the post-exilic prophets and in understanding the period when Chronicles was compiled and the psalms were arranged in their present form. More significantly, as the author of this excellent commentary indicates, Ezra and Nehemiah focus on the people of God, the house of God and the ambivalent attitude of the Jews toward their Persian masters, teaching many lessons for today's church and pointing to the temple-city of the new Jerusalem. This is a masterpiece of scholarly yet spiritually beneficial comment.

Gregory Goswell is Academic Dean and Lecturer in Biblical Studies at Christ College, Sydney.