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
So we stayed in the valley opposite Beth-peor.
“Beth-peor, i. e., the house of Peor, no doubt derived its name from a temple of the Moabite god Peor which was there situated.”
Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and so that they do not slip from your…
“A full stop should end Deu 4:9; and Deu 4:10 begin, At the time that thou stoodest, etc. Deu 4:11 then ye came near, etc.”
When you look to the heavens and see the sun and moon and stars—all the host of heaven—do not be enticed to bow down and worship what the LORD your…
“Divided - i. e., “whose light God has distributed to the nations for their use and benefit, and which therefore being creatures ministering to man’s convenience must not be worshipped as man’s lords.””
Then Moses set aside three cities across the Jordan to the east
“These verses are inserted between two distinct and complete discourses for the reason to which they themselves call attention (“Then Moses severed three cities,” etc.); i. e., the fact narrated took place historically after Moses spoke the one discourse and before he delivered the other.”
He did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with all of us who are alive here today.
“The “fathers” are, as in Deu 4:37, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. With them God did indeed make a covenant, but not the particular covenant now in question.”
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“Compare Exo. 20 and notes. Moses here adopts the Ten Words as a ground from which he may proceed to reprove, warn, and exhort; and repeats them, with a certain measure of freedom and adaptation.”
The LORD spoke these commandments in a loud voice to your whole assembly out of the fire, the cloud, and the deep darkness on the mountain; He added nothing more.
“He added no more - i. e., He spoke no more with the great voice directly to the people, but addressed all other communications to them through Moses.”
And when you heard the voice out of the darkness while the mountain was blazing with fire, all the heads of your tribes and your elders approached me,
“These verses contain a much fuller narrative of the events briefly described in Exo 20:18-21. Here it is important to call attention to the fact that it was on the entreaties of the people that Moses had taken on him to be the channel of…”
And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
“Since there is but One God, and that God is Israel’s God, so Israel must love God unreservedly and entirely.”
Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their idols in the fire.
“See Deu 6:10 note. Deu 7:5 Their groves - Render, their idols of wood: the reference is to the wooden trunk used as a representation of Ashtaroth; see Deu 7:13 and Exo 34:13 note.”
He will love you and bless you and multiply you. He will bless the fruit of your womb and the produce of your land—your grain, new wine, and oil, the…
“Flocks of thy sheep - Render it instead: “the ewes of thy sheep.” The phrase is unique to Deuteronomy. The Hebrew word for “ewes” is the plural form of Ashtoreth, the well-known name of the “goddess of the Zidonians” 1Ki 11:5.”
And the LORD will remove from you all sickness. He will not lay upon you any of the terrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but He will inflict them on…
“There seems to be here not so much as a reference to the plagues inflicted miraculously by God on Egypt (compare Exo 15:26), as to the terrible diseases with which, above other countries, Egypt was infested. Compare Deu 28:27, Deu 28:35.”
You must burn up the images of their gods; do not covet the silver and gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared…
“The silver or gold that is on them - The silver and gold with which the statues of the gods were overlaid.”
He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not…
“But by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord - literally, “every outgoing of the mouth of the Lord.” Compare Deu 29:5-6.”
For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills;
“See Exo 3:8 note, and the contrast expressed in Deu 11:10-11, between Palestine and Egypt. The physical characteristics and advantages of a country like Palestine must have been quite strange to Israel at the time Moses was speaking: compare Deu 3:25 note.”
He led you through the vast and terrifying wilderness with its venomous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty and waterless land. He brought you water from the rock of flint.
“Render: “Who brought thee through that great and terrible wilderness, the fiery serpent and the scorpion, and the dry land where are no waters.” On the fiery serpents see Num 21:6 note.”
Hear, O Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens.
“The lesson of this chapter is exactly that of Eph 2:8, “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.””
But understand that today the LORD your God goes across ahead of you as a consuming fire; He will destroy them and subdue them before you.
“So shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly - This is not inconsistent with Deu 7:22, in which instant annihilation is not to be expected for the reasons assigned.”
At Horeb you provoked the LORD, and He was angry enough to destroy you.
“Also in Horeb - Rather, “even in Horeb.” The time and circumstances made the apostasy at Horeb particularly inexcusable.”
Then I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time.
“I fell down before the Lord, as at the first - Moses interceded for the people before he came down from the mountain the first time Exo 32:11-13. This intercession is only briefly alluded to in this verse.”
The LORD was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I also prayed for Aaron.
“Israel could not even boast that its heads and representatives continued, faithful. Aaron had been already designated for the high priestly functions; but he fell away with the rest of the people.”
You continued to provoke the LORD at Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah.
“See the marginal reference. Taberah was the name of a spot in or near the station of Kibroth-hattaavah, and accordingly is not named in the list of encampments given in Num 33:16.”
At that time the LORD said to me, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the originals, come up to Me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood.
“These verses are closely connected with the preceding chapter, and state very briefly the results of the intercession of Moses recorded in Deu 9:25-29.”
Know this day that it is not your children who have known and seen the discipline of the LORD your God: His greatness, His mighty hand, and His outstretched arm;
“And know ... - Render it: And own ye this day (for I have not to do with your children which have not known and which have not seen) the chastisement of the Lord, his greatness, etc.”
and what He did in the midst of all the Israelites to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them…
“See the margin. literally, “every living thing at their feet.” The expression does not mean their goods, which would be included in their “households and tents,” but their followers Num 16:32.”