Rereading Isaiah 40-55 as the Project Launcher for the Books of the Law and the Prophets

"[Abou-Chaar's] interpretative approach is very insightful and in fact very desirable in modern biblical scholarship. Ancient writers were very sensitive to the meanings of proper names, and they delighted in constructing linguistic-conceptual connections with such names. Modern critical scholarship rather neglected this important phenomenon, which is widespread in both the Old and the New Testament. In fact, many biblical texts are not merely ornamented, but in fact organized around the various meanings of traditional and/or artificially constructed proper nouns. Therefore, Abou-Chaar's reconstructions of such plays, even if at times disputable, are certainly worth serious consideration in critical analyses of the Hebrew Bible. What is also worth noting here is Abou-Chaar's inspiring use of his native Arabic language to elucidate the meaning of various Hebrew words." - Bartosz Adamczewski, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw