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
You will go out through broken walls, each one straight ahead of her, and you will be cast out toward Harmon,” declares the LORD.
“Ye shall go out through the breaches - Samaria, the place of their ease and confidence, being broken through, they should go forth one by one, “each straight before her,” looking neither to the right nor to the left, as a herd of cows go…”
Offer leavened bread as a thank offering, and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings. For that is what you children of Israel love to do,” declares the Lord GOD.
“And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven - But amid this boastful service, all was self-will. In little or great, the calf-worship at Bethel, or the use of leaven in the sacrifice, they did as they willed.”
“I also withheld the rain from you when the harvest was three months away. I sent rain on one city but withheld it from another.
“And I, I too have withholden the rain - Jerome, dwelling in Palestine, says, that “this rain, when “three months yet remained until harvest,” was the “latter rain,” of the very greatest necessity for the fields of Palestine and the thirsty ground, lest, when the…”
People staggered from city to city for water to drink, but they were not satisfied; yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
“Two or three cities wandered into one city - Those then who were punished, were more than those who were reprieved. The word “wandered” literally, “trembled,” expresses the unsteady reeling gate of those exhausted, in quest of food .”
“I struck you with blight and mildew in your growing gardens and vineyards; the locust devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the…
“I have smitten you with blasting - Literally, “an exceeding scorching,” such as the hot east wind produced, and “an exceeding mildew,” a blight, in which the ears turn untimely a pale yellow, and have no grain. Both words are doubly intensive.”
“Some of you I overthrew as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the…
“I have overthrown some of you - The earthquake is probably reserved to the last, as being the rarest, and so the most special, visitation.”
For behold, He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind and reveals His thoughts to man, who turns the dawn to darkness and strides on the heights of the…
“For lo, He that formeth the mountains - Their God whom they worshiped was but nature. Amos tells them, who “their God” is, whom they were to prepare to meet.”
Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lamentation I take up against you:
“In order to impress Israel the more, Amos begins this his third appeal by a “dirge” over its destruction, mourning over those who were full of joy, and thought themselves safe and enviable.”
This is what the Lord GOD says: “The city that marches out a thousand strong will only see a hundred return, and the one that marches out a hundred strong…
“The city that went out by a thousand - (that is, probably that sent out a thousand fighting men, as the word “went out” is often used for, “went out” to fight,) “shall have” literally, “shall retain, an hundred.” She was to be decimated.”
Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal; do not journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.
“But (and) seek not Bethel - Israel pretended to seek God in Bethel. Amos sets the two seeking, as incompatible. The god, worshiped at Bethel, was not the One God. To seek God there was to lose Him.”
There are those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground.
“Ye who turn - Those whom he calls to seek God, were people filled with all injustice, who turned the sweetness of justice into the bitterness of wormwood .”
He flashes destruction on the strong, so that fury comes upon the stronghold.
“That strengtheneth the spoiled - (Literally, “spoil” English margin) probably That “maketh devastation to smile on the strong.” . The “smile,” in anger, attests both the extremity of anger, and the consciousness of the ease, wherewith the offence can be punished.”
Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact from him a tax of grain, you will never live in the stone houses you have built; you will never drink…
“Forasmuch therefore - (Since they rejected reproof, he pronounces the sentence of God upon them,) “as your treading is upon the poor.” This expresses more habitual trampling on the poor, than if he had said, “ye tread upon the poor.””
For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins are numerous. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes; you deprive the poor of justice in the gate.
“For I know - Literally, “I have known.” They thought that God did not know, because He did not avenge; as the Psalmist says, “Thy judgments are far above out of his sight” Psa 10:5.”
Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times, for the days are evil.
“Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time - The “time” may be either the time of the obduracy of the wicked, or that of the common punishment.”
It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to…
“As if a man, did flee from a lion - The Day of the Lord is a day of terror on every side.”
Will not the Day of the LORD be darkness and not light, even gloom with no brightness in it?
“Shall not the Day of the Lord be darkness? - He had described that Day as a day of inevitable destruction, such its man’s own conscience and guilty fears anticipate, and then appeals to their own consciences, “is it not so, as I have said?””
“I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.
“I hate, I despise your feasts - Israel clave to its heart’s sin, the worship of the true God, under the idol-form of the calf; else, it would fain be conscientious and scrupulous.”
Take away from Me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
“Take thou away from Me - Literally, “from upon Me,” that is, from being a burden to Me, a weight on Me.”
Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
“Have ye offered - (better, “Did ye offer”) unto Me sacrifices and offerings? Israel justified himself to himself by his half-service. This had been his way from the first. “Their heart was not whole with God, neither abode they in His covenant” Psa 78:37.”
Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts.
“Therefore - (And) this being so, such having been their way from the beginning until now, will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus Syria was the most powerful enemy by whom God had heretofore chastened them 2Ki 13:7.”
Woe to those at ease in Zion and those secure on Mount Samaria, the distinguished ones of the foremost nation, to whom the house of Israel comes.
“Woe to them that are at ease - The word always means such as are recklessly at their ease, “the careless ones,” such as those whom Isaiah bids Isa 32:9-11, “rise up, tremble, be troubled, for many days and years shall ye be troubled.””
You dismiss the day of calamity and bring near a reign of violence.
“Ye that put far away - Probably “with aversion.” They bade that day as it were, be gone. The Hebrew idiom expresses, how they would put it off, if they could; as far as in them lay, they “assigned a distance to it, , although…”
You improvise songs on the harp like David and invent your own musical instruments.
“That chant to the voice of the lyre - Accompanying “the voice of the lyre” with the human voice; giving vocal expression and utterance to what the instrumental music spoke without words.”
Therefore, you will now go into exile as the first of the captives, and your feasting and lounging will come to an end.
“Therefore now (that is, shortly) shall they go captive with the first (at the head) of those who go captive - They had sought eminence; they should have it.”