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The New International Commentary on the Old Testament
The Book of Numbers
The book of Numbers tells a story that has two main characters -- God and Israel. The way the story is told sounds odd and often harsh to readers today. In spite of the difficulties imposed by Numbers on today's readers, the main point of the book is of immense importance for God's people in any exact obedience to God is crucial.
This comprehensive and erudite commentary -- resulting from nearly a decade of study of Numbers by Timothy Ashley -- presents a thorough explication of this significant Hebrew text. Ashley's introduction to Numbers discusses such questions as structure, authorship, and theological themes, and it features an extended bibliography of major works on the book of Numbers, concentrating mainly on works in English, French, and German.
Dividing the text of Numbers into five major sections, Ashley's commentary elucidates the theological themes of obedience and disobedience that run throughout the book's narrative. His detailed verse-by-verse comments are intended primarily to explain the Hebrew text of Numbers as we have it rather than to speculate on how the book came to be in its present form.
This comprehensive and erudite commentary -- resulting from nearly a decade of study of Numbers by Timothy Ashley -- presents a thorough explication of this significant Hebrew text. Ashley's introduction to Numbers discusses such questions as structure, authorship, and theological themes, and it features an extended bibliography of major works on the book of Numbers, concentrating mainly on works in English, French, and German.
Dividing the text of Numbers into five major sections, Ashley's commentary elucidates the theological themes of obedience and disobedience that run throughout the book's narrative. His detailed verse-by-verse comments are intended primarily to explain the Hebrew text of Numbers as we have it rather than to speculate on how the book came to be in its present form.
744 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 28, 2022
In the recent spate of new releases in the New International Commentary on the Old Testament (NICOT), we get this updated commentary on Numbers by Timothy Ashley. The first question, obviously, is what is different here from the original edition. Fortunately, he tells us right up front in the preface. First, he tries to take in a sampling if what’s been written in the last 25 years. Second, he changes a major earlier emphasis on arguing against the Documentary Hypothesis. Though he was on the right side of that issue, there could hardly be a more wasted labor than that of surveying the garbage can where that theory now resides. So this update has to be better!
For starters, this commentary has been rated in the top few on Numbers since it was released and the intervening years and releases of new commentaries did nothing to knock it off its perch. I’m convinced this update will keep it relevant and important for the next 20 years. The changes weren’t dramatic because its value was already established. The editors clearly made a wise choice in retaining Ashley.
The bibliography is quite large, though there aren’t as many post-1993 listings as you might have anticipated (where is Dennis Cole?). The Introduction is only 20 pages, but it does get sufficiently to the heart of the matter. Apparently, he prefers to discuss more issues in the commentary proper itself as that part is rather full. Structure gets short discussion, but it is not really debated as much as other books anyway. He still has an-depth discussion on authorship and composition that assumes sources and editing, but focuses on the final form of the text that he believes is authoritative. His section on theological themes looks at Numbers chronologically and well develops those themes. He is brief on his discussion of text and versions, but most of us would find little loss there.
It’s the commentary proper where this volume excels. The exegesis is masterful and top-flight. I couldn’t agree with his skepticism of the large numbers we find in this book, but otherwise there is all you’re looking for in a major commentary. In fact, the quality of the exegesis compensates for any criticism that you could level at this book. For that reason alone, the impressive exegesis, I must label this commentary 5-star all the way!
I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
For starters, this commentary has been rated in the top few on Numbers since it was released and the intervening years and releases of new commentaries did nothing to knock it off its perch. I’m convinced this update will keep it relevant and important for the next 20 years. The changes weren’t dramatic because its value was already established. The editors clearly made a wise choice in retaining Ashley.
The bibliography is quite large, though there aren’t as many post-1993 listings as you might have anticipated (where is Dennis Cole?). The Introduction is only 20 pages, but it does get sufficiently to the heart of the matter. Apparently, he prefers to discuss more issues in the commentary proper itself as that part is rather full. Structure gets short discussion, but it is not really debated as much as other books anyway. He still has an-depth discussion on authorship and composition that assumes sources and editing, but focuses on the final form of the text that he believes is authoritative. His section on theological themes looks at Numbers chronologically and well develops those themes. He is brief on his discussion of text and versions, but most of us would find little loss there.
It’s the commentary proper where this volume excels. The exegesis is masterful and top-flight. I couldn’t agree with his skepticism of the large numbers we find in this book, but otherwise there is all you’re looking for in a major commentary. In fact, the quality of the exegesis compensates for any criticism that you could level at this book. For that reason alone, the impressive exegesis, I must label this commentary 5-star all the way!
I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
October 7, 2021
Timothy Ashley did a fine job with the book of Numbers. It gets a bit dry, especially in the places where he does nothing but traces the geographical location of various sites mentioned in the book. His excursus on the large numbers was eye-opening though confusing as to what he believed. I loved his treatment of the Levitical order and duties in chapters 2-4. Much more could be said, but overall a good commentary.
June 10, 2023
For nearly fifty years, New International Commentaries have been the evangelical standard for a commentary set. Intended for clergy and biblical scholars, the NIC is an academic commentary that understands that not all of its readers will be fluent in Hebrew or Greek. Instead, the various authors provide their own translations of the text, use transliterated forms of biblical languages, and keep a balance between the academic and the applicational. The result is a versatile series that is beneficial for biblical scholars, but especially helpful to clergy. In my time as a pastor, it has become my first resource for studying any passage.
Timothy R. Ashley’s The Book of Numbers represents a recent push since about 2018 to replace some aging volumes in the series. Since 2018, ten NICOT volumes have been released and seven of those have been replacement volumes. Ashley’s volume stands out, because unlike the other replacements he is replacing himself. Ashley wrote the original NICOT volume for Numbers back in 1993 and has now updated thirty years later. (Sidenote for those curious, NICOT now covers every OT book except Exodus, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Esther, and Daniel. While the replacements are great, I would love to see the series reach completion—particularly not having a commentary on Exodus just seems shocking to me and I haven’t a clue why a volume (or two) on that book hasn’t happened yet.)
Timothy Ashley is a former professor of biblical studies who taught at Acadia Divinity College and Central Baptist Theological seminary. After his professorship, he moved to pastoral ministry and was minister of First Baptist Church in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Ashley is now 76 years old, retired, and seemingly spending his retirement by updating his one major work. Unlike some others who have contributed volumes to the NICOT/NICNT series, Ashley was not a writing scholar throughout his academic career and, indeed, this volume is his only published book.
This begs the question if Ashley has the theological credentials to pen a volume like this. Well, he holds an MA in Hebrew and Old Testament from American Baptist Seminary of the West and a PhD in the same from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. So the theological credentials are there. What sets this volume apart from others for me is that Ashley isn’t a writing scholar. I won’t say he’s not an academic—over two decades as a professor and all—but there’s a real pastoral heart that shines through in his ministry and is writing. And if ever an Old Testament book needed the pastoral heart of a scholar and not just the analytical mind of an academic, it’s The Book of Numbers. Ashley approaches Numbers not just to pick it apart like a scholar but to share its importance and meaning for the average pastor and their average congregation.
The second question to be begged is whether or not the second edition is worth it. If you’ve already got the first edition sitting on your shelf (as I did), then do you need to shell out the $60 for the update? In all honesty, probably not. It depends on your context. The inside flap of the dust jacket states that this updated edition includes revisions that reflect Ashley’s decades of experience with numbers, as well as updated footnotes and bibliography. In the preface to the 2nd edition, Ashley writes about his process:
“I began by looking over what I had done in the first edition. As I have pored over what I wrote in the first preface (and in the first edition of the commentary proper), I have discovered that I still agree with a good deal of what I wrote…I note at the beginning that this volume is a second edition, not a brand-new work. However, I have made some changes along the way, some of which might be worth highlighting.”
From there, Ashley details some of the changes, which I will summarize: First, Ashley has kept up with recent literature on the Book of Numbers and updated references when applicable. He writes that he has tried to include “a fair sample of these in the second edition.” A quick perusal of the selected bibliography has me estimating that approximately 30 entries would have to be new to this edition, representing maybe 5% of the total. I compared this to Bill Arnold’s volume on Deuteronomy, which is a replacement volume from a similarly aging first edition but by a new author. In that volume’s selected bibliography, approximately 140 entries, representing maybe 90% of the total, were from 2000 or after. It is possible that there is simply that much more relevant research on Deuteronomy than on Numbers, but unlikely. A review of technical and semi-technical commentaries on Numbers published in the past 30 years finds that Ashley only mentions a few. Now this does not mean that The Book of Numbers represents inferior scholarship or that Ashley does not exegete the text well. Rather, it means that it does not represent the latest scholarship despite being recently published. Ashley’s updates as regards the literature is cursory at best.
Second, Ashley writes that the updated volume argues less against the documentary hypothesis (a theory that the Pentateuch was written over time by several schools of writers). That theory was more in vogue during the time Ashley wrote the first edition but currently most scholarship is no longer focusing on this question and Ashley writes that he has become more appreciative of scholars writing in favor of the theory while still not believing it to hold much weight. He concludes that the final form of the book of Numbers dates to the late-sixth or early-fifth century BC—but his concerns are now more pastoral than academic.
The Book of Numbers: Second Edition mostly reflects the original work. The organizational structure of the book is the same. Ashley begins with a very short introduction. Other volumes have 50 to 100-page introductions become the commentary proper. The first edition padded the length by including the selected bibliography in the introductory content instead of as part of the prefatory materials. The second edition moves the bibliography, leaving readers with a mere 17 pages of introduction over the book as a whole. In addition, the outline of the book is the same as the first edition, though there is a more detailed breakdown in the table of contents. This detail is included in the body of the text in the first edition, but including it in the contents of the second edition allows readers easier access to the section they’re looking for.
Overall, this might be the first volume of NICOT that I’ve been relatively disappointed in. Don’t get me wrong: Ashley’s exegetical work in the commentary is solid and there’s a lot to be learned from it. However, the lack of a robust introduction is a negative mark in my opinion for both editions while the relative lack of updating between editions makes the new edition not different enough to justify the cost of a new volume. The pros of the first edition would be its slightly cheaper cost and bigger font. The pros of the second edition are the slight updates that have been made and having the most updated version. With volumes in the OT still left to even have a first edition, I’m not sure why NICOT chose to release a minorly updated version of The Book of Numbers. I would rather have waited on a new volume entirely.
Timothy R. Ashley’s The Book of Numbers represents a recent push since about 2018 to replace some aging volumes in the series. Since 2018, ten NICOT volumes have been released and seven of those have been replacement volumes. Ashley’s volume stands out, because unlike the other replacements he is replacing himself. Ashley wrote the original NICOT volume for Numbers back in 1993 and has now updated thirty years later. (Sidenote for those curious, NICOT now covers every OT book except Exodus, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Esther, and Daniel. While the replacements are great, I would love to see the series reach completion—particularly not having a commentary on Exodus just seems shocking to me and I haven’t a clue why a volume (or two) on that book hasn’t happened yet.)
Timothy Ashley is a former professor of biblical studies who taught at Acadia Divinity College and Central Baptist Theological seminary. After his professorship, he moved to pastoral ministry and was minister of First Baptist Church in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Ashley is now 76 years old, retired, and seemingly spending his retirement by updating his one major work. Unlike some others who have contributed volumes to the NICOT/NICNT series, Ashley was not a writing scholar throughout his academic career and, indeed, this volume is his only published book.
This begs the question if Ashley has the theological credentials to pen a volume like this. Well, he holds an MA in Hebrew and Old Testament from American Baptist Seminary of the West and a PhD in the same from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. So the theological credentials are there. What sets this volume apart from others for me is that Ashley isn’t a writing scholar. I won’t say he’s not an academic—over two decades as a professor and all—but there’s a real pastoral heart that shines through in his ministry and is writing. And if ever an Old Testament book needed the pastoral heart of a scholar and not just the analytical mind of an academic, it’s The Book of Numbers. Ashley approaches Numbers not just to pick it apart like a scholar but to share its importance and meaning for the average pastor and their average congregation.
The second question to be begged is whether or not the second edition is worth it. If you’ve already got the first edition sitting on your shelf (as I did), then do you need to shell out the $60 for the update? In all honesty, probably not. It depends on your context. The inside flap of the dust jacket states that this updated edition includes revisions that reflect Ashley’s decades of experience with numbers, as well as updated footnotes and bibliography. In the preface to the 2nd edition, Ashley writes about his process:
“I began by looking over what I had done in the first edition. As I have pored over what I wrote in the first preface (and in the first edition of the commentary proper), I have discovered that I still agree with a good deal of what I wrote…I note at the beginning that this volume is a second edition, not a brand-new work. However, I have made some changes along the way, some of which might be worth highlighting.”
From there, Ashley details some of the changes, which I will summarize: First, Ashley has kept up with recent literature on the Book of Numbers and updated references when applicable. He writes that he has tried to include “a fair sample of these in the second edition.” A quick perusal of the selected bibliography has me estimating that approximately 30 entries would have to be new to this edition, representing maybe 5% of the total. I compared this to Bill Arnold’s volume on Deuteronomy, which is a replacement volume from a similarly aging first edition but by a new author. In that volume’s selected bibliography, approximately 140 entries, representing maybe 90% of the total, were from 2000 or after. It is possible that there is simply that much more relevant research on Deuteronomy than on Numbers, but unlikely. A review of technical and semi-technical commentaries on Numbers published in the past 30 years finds that Ashley only mentions a few. Now this does not mean that The Book of Numbers represents inferior scholarship or that Ashley does not exegete the text well. Rather, it means that it does not represent the latest scholarship despite being recently published. Ashley’s updates as regards the literature is cursory at best.
Second, Ashley writes that the updated volume argues less against the documentary hypothesis (a theory that the Pentateuch was written over time by several schools of writers). That theory was more in vogue during the time Ashley wrote the first edition but currently most scholarship is no longer focusing on this question and Ashley writes that he has become more appreciative of scholars writing in favor of the theory while still not believing it to hold much weight. He concludes that the final form of the book of Numbers dates to the late-sixth or early-fifth century BC—but his concerns are now more pastoral than academic.
The Book of Numbers: Second Edition mostly reflects the original work. The organizational structure of the book is the same. Ashley begins with a very short introduction. Other volumes have 50 to 100-page introductions become the commentary proper. The first edition padded the length by including the selected bibliography in the introductory content instead of as part of the prefatory materials. The second edition moves the bibliography, leaving readers with a mere 17 pages of introduction over the book as a whole. In addition, the outline of the book is the same as the first edition, though there is a more detailed breakdown in the table of contents. This detail is included in the body of the text in the first edition, but including it in the contents of the second edition allows readers easier access to the section they’re looking for.
Overall, this might be the first volume of NICOT that I’ve been relatively disappointed in. Don’t get me wrong: Ashley’s exegetical work in the commentary is solid and there’s a lot to be learned from it. However, the lack of a robust introduction is a negative mark in my opinion for both editions while the relative lack of updating between editions makes the new edition not different enough to justify the cost of a new volume. The pros of the first edition would be its slightly cheaper cost and bigger font. The pros of the second edition are the slight updates that have been made and having the most updated version. With volumes in the OT still left to even have a first edition, I’m not sure why NICOT chose to release a minorly updated version of The Book of Numbers. I would rather have waited on a new volume entirely.
April 22, 2026
Ashley provides a clearly argued, well-written commentary from a broadly evangelical perspective. As instances of this, in the main he does not favor speculative emendations to the Hebrew text that are not grounded in textual evidence and he seeks to advocate for the historicity of the stories in Numbers when it is plausible to do so. By 'broadly evangelical,' I mean he is wiling to grant some of the arguments of critical scholarship. This is a solid commentary on Numbers though it is a bit weak on theological integration of different sections of the book and at times he gets caught up on linguistic information that obscures rather than illuminates the text. If one has the earlier edition, published in 1993, I would not bother getting this second edition.
January 6, 2025
This is one of my favorite commentary series. When I prepare to preach through a book or for a Bible Study, this series and its NT version are part of my standard choices as support material. I did not find this commentary as useful as others in the series, but it was still very good. I thought for my needs and purposes it leaned towards the more technical side and etymology of the language, but that is just my opinion and unnecessary for most of Numbers and my purposes. If you like this series this is a valuable book, but I did not find it anywhere near as valuable as Warren Wiersbe's BE Commentary on Numbers.
April 25, 2026
Ashley provides insightful analysis of Numbers with a balanced discussion of various perspectives from scholars. The only issue I have is undue respect given to the Documentary Hypothesis, which influences his analysis at times (although not significantly).
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews