Commentary on the Old Testament

by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch
1757-78

Karl Keil, 1807-1888

German Protestant exegetist. Born at Lauterbach, Saxony, Feb. 26, 1807; died at Rodlitz, Saxony, May 5, 1888.

He studied theology in Dorpat and Berlin, and in 1833 accepted a call to the theological faculty of Dorpat, where he labored for twenty-five years as docent and professor of Old- and New-Testament exegesis and Oriental languages. In 1859 he settled at Leipsic, where he devoted himself to literary work and to the practical affairs of the Lutheran Church. In 1887 he moved to Rodlitz, continuing his literary activity there until his death.

He belonged to the strictly orthodox and conservative school of Hengstenberg. Ignoring modern criticism almost entirely, all his writings represent the view that the books of the Old and New Testaments are to be retained as the revealed word of God. He regarded the development of German theological science as a passing phase of error. His chief work is the commentary on the Old Testament (1866), which he undertook with Franz Delitzsch. To this work he contributed commentaries on all the books from Genesis through Esther, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the minor prophets.

Franz Delitzsch, 1813-1890

Lutheran. Born at Leipsic Feb. 23, 1813 and died there Mar. 4, 1890.

He came of Hebrew parentage; studied at Leipsic, and became privatdocent in 1842; was called as ordinary professor to Rostock in 1846; then to Erlangen in 1850; and back to Leipsic in 1867.

His exegetical activity really commenced at Erlangen, where he prepared independently and in connection with Karl Keil some of the best commentaries on the Old Testament (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, 1866) which had been produced in Germany. These were soon translated into English and published at Edinburgh.

Delitzsch opposed the idea "of fencing theology off with the letter of the Formula of Concord." In an introduction to commentary on Genesis published in 1887, he made it clear that the Bible, as the literature of a divine revelation, can not be permitted to be charged with a lack of veracity or to be robbed of its historic basis.

In 1886 he founded a seminary at Leipsic in which candidates of theology are prepared for missionary work among the Jews, and which in memory of him is now called Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum.

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