Voices and influences
Albert Barnes
The Philadelphia pastor who rose at four every morning to write Bible notes for his own Sunday school, and sold a million volumes of them.
Summary
This site quotes Albert Barnes 8,265 times across 66 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived 1798 to 1870.
- Quoted here most in Isaiah: 746 of 8,265.
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Albert Barnes
- Lived
- 1798 to 1870
- Tradition
- Presbyterian
5 of 8,265 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Albert Barnes died in 1870 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts - Interpreters have differed in regard to the connection of this verse with the preceding.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
The rest of the quotation
It is evident, I think, that it is properly connected with the subject of pardon; and the sense must be, that the plans and purposes of God in regard to forgiveness are as far above those of people as the heavens are higher than the earth, Isa 55:
Isaiah 55:8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. BSB
He hath shewed thee - Micah does not tell them now, as for the first time; which would have excused them. He says, “He hath shewed thee;” He, about whose mind and will and pleasure they were pretending to enquire, the Lord their God.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
The rest of the quotation
He had shewn it to them. The law was full of it. He shewed it to them, when He said, “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him and to serve the Lord, thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command thee this day for thy good?” Deu 10:12-13. They had asked, “with what outward thing shall I come before the Lord;” the prophet tells them, “what thing is good,” the inward man of the heart, righteousness, love, humility. And what doth the Lord require (search, seek) of thee? - The very word implies an earnest search within. He would say (Rup.), “Trouble not thyself as to any of these things, burnt-offerings, rams, calves, without thee. For God seeketh not thine, but thee; not thy substance, but thy spirit; not ram or goat, but thy heart.” : “Thou askest, what thou shouldest offer for thee? Other thyself. For what else doth the Lord seek of thee, but thee? Because, of all earthly creatures, He hath made nothing better than thee, He seeketh thyself from thyself, because thou hadst lost thyself.” To do judgment - are chiefly all acts of equity; “to love mercy,” all deeds of love. Judgment, is what right requires; mercy, what love. Yet, secondarily, “to do judgment” is to pass righteous judgments in all cases; and so, as to others, “judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” Joh 7:24; and as to one’s self also. Judge equitably and kindly of others, humbly of thyself. […]
Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? BSB
(Compare Exo. 39:1-31.) Moses is now commanded to commit all that pertains to the offerings made to the Lord in the sanctuary to the exclusive charge of the members of a single family, who were to hold their office from generation to generation.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
The rest of the quotation
In the patriarchal times, the external rites of worship had generally been conducted by the head of the tribe or family, in accordance with the principle involved in the dedication of the firstborn Exo 13:2; Num 3:12-
Exodus 28:1 “Next, have your brother Aaron brought to you from among the Israelites, along with his sons Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar, to serve Me as priests. BSB
The leper was to carry about with him the usual signs of mourning for the dead. Compare Lev 10:6 and margin reference.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
The rest of the quotation
The leper was a living parable in the world of the sin of which death was the wages; not the less so because his suffering might have been in no degree due to his own personal deserts: he bore about with him at once the deadly fruit and the symbol of the sin of his race. Exo 20:
Leviticus 13:45 A diseased person must wear torn clothes and let his hair hang loose, and he must cover his mouth and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’ BSB
Chambers - (Margin, floors). Rather, a lean-to, which completely surrounded three sides of the building, the north, the west, and the south.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
1 Kings 6:5 Against the walls of the temple and the inner sanctuary, Solomon built a chambered structure around the temple, in which he constructed the side rooms. BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Albert Barnes 8,265 times across 66 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Albert Barnes was born at Rome, New York, on December 1, 1798. He was headed for the law. At Hamilton College he was converted, changed direction, and went to Princeton Theological Seminary instead, graduating in 1824. His first pastorate was Morristown, New Jersey, from 1825 to 1830. In 1830 he was called to the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, where he preached until 1867 — thirty-seven years in one pulpit. The habit that made him famous was the alarm clock. Barnes rose at four every morning and wrote until nine, before the day's pastoral work began. What he wrote were notes on the Bible for his own Sunday school teachers and Bible class — plain explanations, verse by verse, aimed at people with no Greek and no library. He published them, beginning with the Gospels in 1832. They did not stop. Notes, Explanatory and Practical eventually covered the whole New Testament and much of the Old — Job, the Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel — and sold more than a million volumes in his lifetime, an astonishing number for the period. Generations of American laymen learned their Bible out of Barnes. He was also tried for heresy. His 1829 sermon The Way of Salvation, and then his notes on Romans in 1835, were charged with departing from the Westminster Confession on original sin and the atonement; Barnes taught that Christ's death was a provision made for all rather than a payment restricted in advance to the elect. The Presbytery of Philadelphia suspended him from the ministry in 1835, and the General Assembly reversed the suspension in 1836. He was acquitted, but the fight was one of the fuses of the Old School–New School division that split the American Presbyterian church in 1837. Barnes stood on the New School side. He fought slavery hard and early. An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery (1846) took up the biblical arguments the Southern churches used and dismantled them one at a time; The Church and Slavery followed in 1857. The books were read widely in the North during the years the country came apart. His eyesight failed badly in later life, and he kept working with help. He resigned the pulpit in 1867 and died in Philadelphia on December 24, 1870, at seventy-two. What he left is unusual for a scholar. Not a monument — a tool. A working pastor's commentary, written before breakfast for people who had no one else to explain the text, still in print and still free more than a century and a half later. Sources: Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the New Testament and An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery; the published minutes of the Presbyterian General Assembly, 1835–1837; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church; George Marsden, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.
8,265 quotations across 66 books
Where this voice is quoted
Year after year, each visitor would bring his tribute: articles of silver and gold, clothing, weapons, spices, horses, and mules.
“His present - i. e., his tribute (1Ki 4:21 note). A statement illustrated by Egyptian and Assyrian sculptures on slabs and obelisks.”
Solomon accumulated 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses, which he stationed in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem.
“See 1Ki 4:26 note. Until the time of Solomon, war-chariots had not been in use among the Jews, except to a very small extent 1Ch 18:4. Hence, it was necessary for him to put himself on an equality in this respect with neighboring powers.”
The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as abundant as sycamore in the foothills.
“Made silver as stones - This strong hyperbole marks in the most striking way the great wealth and prosperity of the capital during Solomon’s reign.”
A chariot could be imported from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty.
“Taking the shekel at about three shillings of our money, six hundred silver shekels would be equal to about 90; and 150 shekels to 22 British pounds and 10 shillings.”
King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh—women of Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon, as well as Hittite women.
“In noticing successively Solomon’s excessive accumulation of silver and gold 1Ki 10:14-25, his multiplication of horses 1Ki 10:26-29, and his multiplication of wives, the writer has in mind the warning of Moses against these three forms of princely ostentation, all alike forbidden to an Israelite…”
These women were from the nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, for surely they will turn your hearts after their gods.”
“Ye shall not go in unto them ... - These words are not a quotation from the Pentateuch. They merely give the general meaning of the two passages prohibiting intermarriage with neighboring idolators (marginal references).”
He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines—and his wives turned his heart away.
“These numbers seem excessive to many critics, and it must be admitted that history furnishes no parallel to them. In Son 6:8 the number of Solomon’s legitimate wives is said to be sixty, and that of his concubines eighty.”
For when Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God, as his father David had been.
“Old - About fifty or fifty-five. From his age at his accession (1Ki 2:2 note) he could not have been more than about sixty at his death.”
Solomon followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
“Went after - This expression is common in the Pentateuch, and always signifies actual idolatry (see Deu 11:28; Deu 13:2; Deu 28:14, etc.). For Ashtoreth, or Astarte, the goddess of the Zidonians, see Exo 34:13, note; Deu 16:21, note.”
At that time on a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites.
“Chemosh (Num 21:29 note), seems to have been widely worshipped in Western Asia. His name occurs frequently on the “Moabite-Stone.” Car-Chemish, “the fort of Chemosh,” a great city of the northern Hittites, must have been under his protection.”
Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom away from him. I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake…
“One tribe - i. e., (marginal reference) the tribe of Judah. Benjamin was looked upon as absorbed in Judah, so as not to be really a tribe in the same sense as the others.”
Earlier, when David was in Edom, Joab the commander of the army had gone to bury the dead and had struck down every male in Edom.
“The verse gives certain additional particulars of David’s conquest of Edom (marginal references). Joab was left, or sent, to complete the subjugation of the country, with orders to exterminate all the grown male inhabitants.”
Joab and all Israel had stayed there six months, until he had killed every male in Edom.
“Every male in Edom - i. e., every male whom he could find. As did Hadad and his company 1Ki 11:17, so others would escape in various directions. The Edomite nation was not destroyed on the occasion.”
When Hadad heard in Egypt that David had rested with his fathers and that Joab, the commander of the army, was dead, he said to Pharaoh, “Let me go, that…
“That Hadad should wait for the death of Joab before requesting leave to return to Idumaea shows how terrible an impression had been made by the severe measures which that commander had carried out twenty-five or thirty years previously 1Ki 11:16.”
Now Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor. So when Solomon noticed that the young man was industrious, he put him in charge of the whole labor force of the…
“A mighty man of valor - Here “a man of strength and activity.” It is a vague term of commendation, the exact force of which must be fixed by the context. See Rth 2:1; 1Sa 9:1, etc.”
During that time, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite met Jeroboam on the road as he was going out of Jerusalem.
“At that time - Probably after Jeroboam’s return from Egypt (see 1Ki 11:40). The Shilonite - An inhabitant of Shiloh in Mount Ephraim, the earliest and most sacred of the Hebrew sanctuaries (Jos 18:10; Jdg 18:31; 1Sa 4:3, etc.)”
And Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing, tore it into twelve pieces,
“The first instance of the “acted parable.” Generally this mode was adopted upon express divine command (see Jer 13:1-11; Eze 3:1-3). A connection may be traced between the type selected and the words of the announcement to Solomon (1Ki 11:11-13. Compare 1Sa 15:26-28).”
Because of this, I will humble David’s descendants—but not forever.’”
“But not forever - David had been distinctly promised that God should never fail his seed, whatever their shortcomings Psa 89:28-37.”
Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone there to make him king.
“The first step taken by the new king was a most judicious one. If anything could have removed the disaffection of the Ephraimites, and caused them to submit to the ascendancy of Judah, it would have been the honor done to their capital by its…”
When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard about this, he was still in Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon and had been living ever since.
“Heard of it - i. e., of the death of Solomon and accession of Rehoboam. This would be more clear without the division into chapters; which division, it must be remembered, is without authority.”
Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How do you advise me to respond to these people?” he asked.
“The old men, that stood before Solomon his father - Perhaps “the princes” of 1Ki 4:2. Solomon placed great value upon good advisers Pro 11:14; Pro 15:22; Pro 24:6.”
They replied, “If you will be a servant to these people and serve them this day, and if you will respond by speaking kind words to them, they will be…
“The advice was not that the king should permanently resign the office of ruler, but that he should “for once” be ruled by his people.”
But Rehoboam rejected the advice of the elders; instead, he consulted the young men who had grown up with him and served him.
“The age of Rehoboam at his accession is an interesting and difficult question. According to the formal statement of the present text of 1Ki 14:21; 2Ch 12:13, he had reached the mature age of 41 years, and would therefore be unable to plead youth as…”
Whereas my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. Whereas my father scourged you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions.’”
“Scorpions - By this word some understand whips having leaden balls at the ends of their lashes with hooks projecting from them; others the thorny stem of the eggplant, or “the scorpion plant.””
So the king did not listen to the people, and indeed this turn of events was from the LORD, to fulfill the word He had spoken to Jeroboam son of…
“The cause was from the Lord - i. e., “the turn of events was from the Lord.” Human passions, anger, pride, and insolence, worked out the accomplishment of the divine designs.”