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
During the reign of David there was a famine for three successive years, and David sought the face of the LORD.
“There is no note of time whatever, nor any clue as to what part of David’s reign the events of this chapter ought to be assigned.”
The Gibeonites said to him, “We need no silver or gold from Saul or his house, nor should you put to death anyone in Israel for us.”
“No silver, nor gold ... - Money payments as a compensation for blood-guilt were very common among many nations. The law, too, in Num 35:31-32, presupposes the existence of the custom which it prohibits.”
Now the king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath before the LORD between David and Jonathan son of Saul.
“The Lord’s oath - The calamity brought upon Israel by Saul’s breach of the oath to the Gibeonites would make David doubly careful in the matter of his own oath to Jonathan.”
And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the hill before the LORD.
“In the first days - The barley harvest (about the middle or toward the end of April) was earlier than the wheat harvest Exo 9:31; Rth 1:22.”
Once again the Philistines waged war against Israel, and David and his servants went down and fought against the Philistines; but David became exhausted.
“This, like the preceding paragraph 2Sa 21:1-14, is manifestly a detached and unconnected extract. It is probably taken from some history of David’s wars, apparently the same as furnished the materials for 2 Sam. 5; 8; 23:8-39.”
Once again there was a battle with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan son of Jair the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear…
“The Hebrew text is manifestly very corrupt. First, for “Jaare-oregim,” 1Ch 20:5 gives us the reading Jair. “Oregim” has evidently got in by a transcriber’s error from the line below, where “oregim” is the Hebrew for “weavers.” Again, the word the “Bethlehemite” is very doubtful.”
So these four descendants of Rapha in Gath fell at the hands of David and his servants.
“Four - Not necessarily meaning that they were brothers, but that they were all of the race of the Giant, all Rephaim. The word “four” is omitted in the parallel passage, only the three last being mentioned in that chapter.”
And David sang this song to the LORD on the day the LORD had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.
“This song, which is found with scarcely any material variation as Ps. 18, and with the words of this first verse for its title, belongs to the early part of David’s reign when he was recently established upon the throne of all Israel, and when…”
These are the last words of David: “The oracle of David son of Jesse, the oracle of the man raised on high, the one anointed by the God of Jacob…
“The last words of David - i. e., his last Psalm, his last “words of song” 2Sa 22:1. The insertion of this Psalm, which is not in the Book of Psalms, was probably suggested by the insertion of the long Psalm in 2 Sam. 22.”
Is not my house right with God? For He has established with me an everlasting covenant, ordered and secured in every part.
“Although my house ... - The sense of this clause (according to the the King James Version) will be that David comparing the actual state of his family and kingdom during the later years of trouble and disaster with the prophetic description of the prosperity…”
Next in command was Eleazar son of Dodo the Ahohite. As one of the three mighty men, he went with David to taunt the Philistines who had gathered for battle…
“Gone away - Rather, went up to battle (2Sa 5:19; 2Ki 3:21, etc.) against them. These words and what follows as far as “troop” 2Sa 23:11 have fallen out of the text in Chronicles.”
At harvest time, three of the thirty chief men went down to David at the cave of Adullam, while a company of Philistines was encamped in the Valley of Rephaim.
“The feat at Bethlehem by three of the thirty was the occasion of their being formed into a distinct triad; Abishai 2Sa 23:18, Benaiah 2Sa 23:20, and a third not named, were probably the three.”
At that time David was in the stronghold, and the garrison of the Philistines was at Bethlehem.
“In an hold - In “the hold” 1Ch 11:16 close to the cave of Adullam (marginal reference note). It shows the power and daring of the Philistines that they should hold a post so far in the country as Bethlehem.”
David longed for water and said, “Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!”
“A cistern of deep, clear, cool water, is called by the monks, David’s Well, about three-quarters of a mile to the north of Bethlehem. Possibly the old well has been filled up since the town was supplied with water by the aqueduct.”
Was he not more honored than the Three? And he became their commander, even though he was not included among the Three.
“i. e., “Was he not the most honorable of the three of the second order, howbeit, he attained not to the three,” the triad, namely, which consisted of Jashobeam, Eleazar, and Shammah.”
He was most honored among the Thirty, but he did not become one of the Three. And David appointed him over his guard.
“David set him over his guard - “Made him of his privy council,” would be a better rendering. See 1Sa 22:14 note. This position, distinct from his office as captain of the Cherethites and Pelethites, is clearly indicated 1Ch 27:34.”
Igal son of Nathan of Zobah, Bani the Gadite,
“It is remarkable that we have several foreigners at this part of the list: Igal of Zobah, Zelek the Ammonite, Uriah the Hittite, and perhaps Nahari the Beerothite.”
and Uriah the Hittite. There were thirty-seven in all.
“Thirty and seven in all - This reckoning is correct, though only 36 “names” are given, the names of only two of the second triad being recorded, but 31 names are given from 2Sa 23:24 to the end, which, added to the two triads, or…”
Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He stirred up David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”
“And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel - This sentence is the heading of the whole chapter, which goes on to describe the sin which kindled this anger, namely, the numbering of the people 1Ch 21:7-8; 1Ch 27:24.”
So the king said to Joab the commander of his army, who was with him, “Go now throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and register the troops…
“1Ch 21:2, supplies some missing words. This passage should run, as at 2Sa 24:4, “And the king said to Joab and to the princes of the host who were with him,” etc. (compare 1Ch 27:22).”
They crossed the Jordan and camped near Aroer, south of the town in the middle of the valley, and proceeded toward Gad and Jazer.
“Aroer - Aroer on the Arnon (Deu 2:36 note). Aroer itself stood on the very edge of the precipitous cliff of the valley; and in the valley beneath, possibly in an island in the stream, stood another city which is here alluded to.”
They went toward the fortress of Tyre and all the cities of the Hivites and Canaanites. Finally, they went on to the Negev of Judah, to Beersheba.
“The strong hold of Tyre - “The fenced city,” as it is generally rendered throughout the historical books. The cities of the Hivites - Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim, and perhaps Shechem, besides those at the foot of Hermon and Lebanon, of which we do…”
And Joab reported to the king the total number of the troops. In Israel there were 800,000 men of valor who drew the sword, and in Judah there were 500,000.
“1Ch 27:23 indicates sufficiently why the numbering was sinful. It is also stated in 1Ch 21:6, that Joab purposely omitted Levi and Benjamin from the reckoning. Eight hundred thousand ... five hundred thousand - In Chronicles the numbers are differently given.”
So Gad went and said to David, “Do you choose to endure three years of famine in your land, three months of fleeing the pursuit of your enemies, or three…
“Compare Eze 14:13-21. The “seven” years of famine correspond with the “seven” years of famine in Gen 41:27, Gen 41:30, and with the same number of years in 2Ki 8:1.”
So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel from that morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.
“The time appointed - Perhaps “the time of the assembly,” meaning the time of the evening sacrifice, at three o’clock, when the people assembled for prayer, more commonly described as “the time of the evening oblation” Dan 9:21; 1Ki 18:29, 1Ki 18:36; Act 3:1; Luk…”