The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary

Summary

Here, from a great scholar and gifted translator, is a landmark publication: the first single-author literary translation of the complete Hebrew Bible. Robert Alter’s award-winning translation delivers the Hebrew Bible as powerful, finely wrought literature, registering the distinctive meanings and rhythms of the ancient Hebrew in a lucid, supple English. The accompanying commentary offers readers authoritative insights on the literary and historical dimensions of the text. Together the translation and commentary form the definitive edition of the Hebrew Bible, whose ancient stories speak directly to us, renewing one of the formative works of our culture.

This three-volume publication of Robert Alter’s complete Hebrew Bible includes large portions—some one-third of the whole—not previously published in free-standing volumes. Most of Prophets appears here for the first time, including the startling, fiery admonitions of a wayward people in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.