After a fourteen-page bibliography, the introductory section of this NICOT volume deals with the placement of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah in the Book of the Twelve. Renz recognizes that there are some connections between some of the Minor Prophetic books but prefers to view these books individually because each has a coherent rationale behind the arrangement of its distinctive message. These messages have links backward to the Torah and forward to the NT, but he concludes that the Twelve are not a coherent literary unit. Later in the introduction to each book, Renz discusses the superscription, the flow of thought (which points to a structure), textual issues, the development of the book (he does not find evidence of redaction), a discussion of the rhetorical function of the book, and reflections on the book’s place in the canon and in the church today.
The exegetical discussion of the text includes a...
