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
Then Elisha prayed, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.”
“Open his eyes that he may see - Elisha’s servant lacked the faith of his master. Elisha therefore prays that he may be given a vision of the spiritual world, and see, as if with the bodily eye, the angelic host (marginal references) which he…”
And when the king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, “My father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?”
“My father - A term of respect used by Jehoram in his joy at seeing an army of Syrians delivered up to him by the prophet. That the king’s character was not changed appears from 2Ki 6:31-32. Shall I smite them? shall I smite them?”
So the king prepared a great feast for them, and after they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them away, and they returned to their master.
“Jehoram did not merely follow the letter of the prophet’s direction, but understood its spirit and acted accordingly.”
So there was a great famine in Samaria. Indeed, they besieged the city so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter cab of…
“As the donkey was “unclean,” it would not be eaten except in the last resort; and its head would be its worst and cheapest part. Cab - This measure is not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture.”
As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”
“The walls of fortified towns had a broad space at the top, protected toward the exterior by battlements, along which the bulk of the defenders were disposed, and from which they hurled their missiles and shot their arrows.”
He answered, “If the LORD does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or the winepress?”
“If the Lord do not help - The translation in the text is decidedly better than the marginal rendering. Some prefer to render - “Nay ... let Jehovah help thee. Whence, shall I help thee?” Out of the barnfloor ...”
Then the king asked her, “What is the matter?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him, and tomorrow we will…
“The king had assumed that the cry of the woman was for food. Her manner indicated that it was not so. He therefore proceeded to inquire what she wanted of him.”
So we boiled my son and ate him, and the next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him.’
“The prophecy alluded to in the marginal references was now fulfilled, probably for the first time. It had a second accomplishment when Jerusalem was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar Lam 4:10, and a third in the final siege of the same city by Titus.”
When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes.
“Sackcloth - Jehoram hoped perhaps to avert Yahweh’s anger, as his father had done 1Ki 21:29. But there was no spirit of self-humiliation, or of true pentitence in his heart 2Ki 5:7. See the next verse.”
He announced, “May God punish me, and ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders through this day!”
“God do so ... - Jehoram uses almost the very words of his wicked mother, when she sought the life of Elijah (marginal reference). The head of Elisha - Beheading was not an ordinary Jewish punishment. The Law did not sanction it.”
While Elisha was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him. And the king said, “This calamity is from the LORD.
“The messenger - It has been proposed to change “messenger” into “king,” the two words being in Hebrew nearly alike, and the speech with which the chapter ends being considered only suitable in the mouth of the king, whose presence is indicated in 2Ki 7:2…”
Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD! This is what the LORD says: ‘About this time tomorrow at the gate of Samaria, a seah of fine flour will…
“The division between the chapters is most awkward here. Elisha, in this verse, replies to the king’s challenge in 2Ki 6:33 - that his God, Yahweh, will give deliverance in the space of a day.”
Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate, and they said to one another, “Why just sit here until we die?
“The position of the lepers is in accordance with the Law of Moses (marginal references); and shows that the Law was still observed to some extent in the kingdom of Israel.”
So they arose at twilight and went to the camp of the Arameans.
“The twilight - The evening twilight (see 2Ki 7:9). The uttermost part of the camp - The extreme boundary of the camp toward the city, not its furthest or most distant portion. Compare 2Ki 7:8.”
So they went and called out to the gatekeepers of the city, saying, “We went to the Aramean camp and no one was there—not a trace—only tethered horses and donkeys…
“They called unto the porter ... and told them - The word “porter” is used like our “guard” and the meaning here is, not that the lepers called to any particular individual, but that they roused the body of men who were keeping guard at…”
But one of his servants replied, “Please, have scouts take five of the horses that remain in the city.
“Behold ... - The Septuagint and a large number of the Hebrew MSS. omit the clause, “behold, they are as all the multitude of Israel that are left in it.””
And they tracked them as far as the Jordan, and indeed, the whole way was littered with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown off in haste.
“The Syrians had fled probably by the great road which led from Samaria to Damascus through Geba, En-gannim, Beth-shean, and Aphek. It crosses the Jordan at the Jisr Mejamia, about thirty-five miles northeast of Samaria.”
Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Arise, you and your household; go and live as a foreigner wherever you can.
“The famine here recorded, and the conversation of the monarch with Gehazi, must have been anterior to the events related in 2 Kings 5 since we may be sure that a king of Israel would not have entered into familiar conversation with a confirmed leper.”
So the woman had proceeded to do as the man of God had instructed.
“The country of the Philistines - the rich low grain-growing plain along the seacoast of Judah - was always a land of plenty compared with the highlands of Palestine. Moreover, if food failed there, it was easily imported by sea from the neighboring Egypt.”
At the end of seven years, when the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, she went to the king to appeal for her house and her land.
“During the Shunammite’s absence in Philistia, her dwelling and her grain-fields had been appropriated by some one who refused to restore them. She therefore determined to appeal to the king. Such direct appeals are common in Oriental countries. Compare 2Ki 6:26; 2Sa 14:4; 1Ki 3:16.”
When the king asked the woman, she confirmed it. So the king appointed for her an officer, saying, “Restore all that was hers, along with all the proceeds of the…
“A certain officer - literally, “a certain eunuch” (margin). Eunuchs were now in common use at the Samaritan court (compare 2Ki 9:32). They are ascribed to the court of David in Chronicles 1Ch 28:1; and we may conjecture that they were maintained by Solomon.”
Then Elisha came to Damascus while Ben-hadad king of Aram was sick, and the king was told, “The man of God has come here.”
“The hour had come for carrying out the command given by God to Elijah (marginal reference “e”), and by him probably passed on to his successor.”
So Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with him a gift of forty camel loads of every good thing from Damascus.
“Every good thing of Damascus - Probably, besides rich robes and precious metals, the luscious wine of Helbon, which was the drink of the Persian kings, the soft white wool of the anti-Libanus Eze 27:18, damask coverings of couches Amo 3:12, and numerous manufactured articles…”
Elisha fixed his gaze steadily on him until Hazael became uncomfortable. Then the man of God began to weep.
“That is, “And he (Elisha) settled his conntenance, and set it (toward Hazael), until he (Hazael) was ashamed.” Elisha fixed on Hazael a long and meaning look, until the latter’s eyes fell before his, and his cheek flushed.”
“But how could your servant, a mere dog, do such a monstrous thing?” said Hazael. And Elisha answered, “The LORD has shown me that you will be king over Aram.”
“But what, is thy servant a dog? - This is a mistranslation, and conveys to the English reader a sense quite different from that of the original.”