Derek Kidner (1913-2008)

Evangelical Scholoarship suffered a loss with the passing of Derek Kidner. Kidner was a servant of the church through the careful study and teaching of the Old Testament.

During his life he served in the following positions:

Curate of St. Nicholas, Sevenoaks (1941-1947)
Vicar of Felsted (1947-1951)
Senior Tutor at Oak Hill Theological College (1951-1964)
Warden of Tyndale House in Cambridge (1964-1978)

The thing I love about Kidner’s work is that it is both scholarly and accessable. He wrote with the intelligence of an academic and the warmth of a pastor for he was both. I commend his work to you. His commentaries on Genesis, the Psalms, and Proverbs have been particularly helpful to me.

Of Psalm 121 Kidner wrote,

To be kept from all evil does not imply a cushioned life, but a well-armed one. The psalm ends with a pledge which could hardly be stronger or more sweeping. Your going out and your coming in is not only a way of saying ‘everything’; it draws attention to one’s ventures and enterprises and the home which remains one’s base; to pilgrimage and return; to the dawn and sunset of one’s days. But the last line takes good care of this journey. It would be hard to decide which half of it is the more encouraging: the fact that it starts from now, or that it runs on, not to the end of time but to time without end; like God Himself who is my portion for ever.