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
He assumed his brothers would understand that God was using him to deliver them, but they did not.
“For he supposed - This is not mentioned by Moses; but it is not at all improbable. When they saw him “alone” contending with the Egyptian; when it was understood that he had come and taken vengeance on one of their oppressors, it might have…”
The next day he came upon two Israelites who were fighting, and he tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’
“And the next day - Exo 2:13. He showed himself - He appeared in a sudden and unexpected manner to them. Unto them - That is, to “two” of the Hebrews, Exo 2:13. As they strove - As they were engaged in a quarrel.”
At this remark, Moses fled to the land of Midian, where he lived as a foreigner and had two sons.
“Then fled Moses ... - Moses fled because he now ascertained that what he had done was known. He supposed that it had been unobserved, Exo 2:12.”
After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.
“And when forty years ... - At the age of 80 years. This, however, was known by tradition. It is not expressly mentioned by Moses.”
When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight. As he approached to look more closely, the voice of the Lord came to him:
“He wondered ... - What particularly attracted his attention was the fact that the bush was not consumed, Exo 3:2-3. The voice of the Lord - Yahweh spake to him from the midst of the bush. He did not see him.”
I have indeed seen the oppression of My people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them.
“I have seen ... - The repetition of this word is in accordance with the usage of the Hebrew writers when they wish to represent anything emphatically. Their groaning - Under their oppressions. Am come down - This is spoken in accordance with human conceptions.”
This Moses, whom they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’
“Whom they refused - That is, when he first presented himself to them, Exo 2:13-14. Stephen introduces and dwells upon this refusal in order, perhaps, to remind them that this had been the character of their nation, and to prepare the way for the charge…”
This is the same Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’
“Which said ... - Deu 18:15, Deu 18:18. See this explained, Act 3:22. Stephen introduced this to remind them of the promise of a Messiah; to show his faith in that promise; and “particularly” to remind them of their obligation to hear and obey him.”
But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.
“Would not obey ... - This refers to what they said of him when he was in the mount, Exo 32:1, Exo 32:23. In their hearts turned ... - They wished to return to Egypt.”
At that time they made a calf and offered a sacrifice to the idol, rejoicing in the works of their hands.
“And they made a calf - This was made of the ear-rings and ornaments which they had brought from Egypt, Exo 32:2-4. Stephen introduces this to remind them how prone the nation had been to reject God, and to walk in the ways of sin.”
And our fathers who received it brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations God drove out before them. It remained until the time of David,
“Our fathers that came after - None of the generation that came out of Egypt were permitted to enter into the and of Canaan except Caleb and Joshua, Num 14:22-24; Num 32:11-12.”
But it was Solomon who built the house for Him.
“But Solomon ... - Built the temple. David was not permitted to do it because he had been a man of war, 1Ch 22:8. He prepared the principal materials for the temple, but Solomon built it, 1 Chr. 22: Compare 1 Kings 6.”
‘Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. What kind of house will you build for Me, says the Lord, or where will My place of repose be?
“Heaven is my throne - See the notes on Mat 5:34. Earth is my footstool - See the notes on Mat 5:35. What house ... - What house or temple can be large or magnificent enough for the dwelling of Him who made all things?”
You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.
“Ye stiff-necked - The discourse of Stephen has every appearance of having been interrupted by the clamors and opposition of the Sanhedrin. This verse has no immediate connection with what precedes, and appears to have been spoken in the midst of opposition and clamor.”
you who received the law ordained by angels, yet have not kept it.”
“Who have received the law - The Law of Moses, given on Mount Sinai. By the disposition of angels - There has been much diversity of opinion in regard to this phrase, εἰς διαταγὰς ἀγγέλων eis diatagas angelōn.”
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
“Full of the Holy Ghost - See the notes on Act 2:4. Looked up stedfastly - Fixed his eyes intently on heaven.”
“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
“I see the heavens opened - A figurative expression, denoting that he was permitted to see “into” heaven, or to see what was there, as if the firmament was divided, and the eye was permitted to penetrate the eternal world. Compare Eze 1:1.”
At this they covered their ears, cried out in a loud voice, and rushed together at him.
“Then they cried out - That is, probably, “the people,” not the members of the council It is evident he was put to death in a popular tumult.”
While they were stoning him, Stephen appealed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
“Calling upon God - The word God is not in the original, and should not have been in the translation. It is in none of the ancient mss. or versions.”
And Saul was there, giving approval to Stephen’s death. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout…
“And Saul was consenting ... - Was pleased with his being put to death and approved it. Compare Act 22:20. This part of the verse should have been connected with the previous chapter. And at that time.”
But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.
“As for Saul - But Saul. He took no interest or part in the pious attentions shown to Stephen, but engaged with zeal in the work of persecution. He made havoc - ἐλυμαίνετο elumaineto.”
Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ to them.
“Then Philip - One of the seven deacons, Act 6:5. He is afterward called the “evangelist,” Act 21:8. The city of Samaria - This does not mean a city whose “name” was Samaria, for no such city at that time existed.”
Prior to that time, a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and astounded the people of Samaria. He claimed to be someone great,
“But there was a certain man called Simon - The fathers have written much respecting this man, and have given strange accounts of him; but nothing more is certainly known of him than is stated in this place.”
On their arrival, they prayed for them to receive the Holy Spirit.
“Were come down - To Samaria. Jerusalem was generally represented as “up,” or “higher” than the rest of the land, Mat 20:18; Joh 7:8. Prayed for them - They sought at the hand of God the extraordinary communications of the Holy Spirit.”
For the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.
“He was fallen - This expression is several times applied to the Holy Spirit, Act 10:44; Act 11:15. It does not differ materially from the common expression, “The Holy Spirit descended.””