SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of ths week as have not been reserved for mina in other forms.] In "The Century Bible" (T. C. and E. C. Jack, 2s. 8d. net) we have Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, by Rev. T. Wilton Davies. Professor Davies examines these three books with frankness, and his con- clusions, which we cannot examine in detail, are well worth study. The considerations which he brings forward as to the law about which Ezra and Nehemiah showed so much zeal are specially important. Neither the Feast of Weeks nor the Feast of the Atonement is mentioned. The chronology of Esther is another perplexing question. If the narrative belongs to the time of Xerxes (485-465 B.C.), how can Mordecai have been one of the exiles carried away with Jehoiachin (B.C. 597) ? Then, again, the writer seems not to be accurate in matters relating to Persian life. The elevation of Mordecai, for instance, to the post of Grand Vizier is not in harmony with what we know of Persian ways. What would theiSeven Houses have said to it, or indeed to the marriage of Esther ? A still moro serious matter is the moral of the book.
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