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 the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“The identity of phrases and ideas of this chapter with Jer. 23 leads to the conclusion that Ezekiel took up a well-known prophecy to enforce and apply it to his companions in exile. They probably had read Jeremiah’s words as referring to others than themselves.”
You did not go up to the gaps or restore the wall around the house of Israel so that it would stand in the battle on the Day of the…
“For - Or, before. In a time of siege when there are gaps or breaches in the walls, it is the part of the leaders to go up to defend them, and to throw up works to stop the in-road of the enemy.”
They see false visions and speak lying divinations. They claim, ‘Thus declares the LORD,’ when the LORD did not send them; yet they wait for the fulfillment of their message.
“And they have made others ... - Rather, “and they hope for the confirmation of their word.” They come to believe their own lies.”
My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and speak lying divinations.
“Assembly - Here “the congregation of the people.” These false prophets were to be struck off from “the writing” or, the rolls, in which the names of all Israelites were registered (compare Psa 87:6; Exo 32:32); and therefore when the restoration Eze 11:17 shall take…”
Now, O son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people who prophesy out of their own imagination. Prophesy against them
“A rebuke to the false prophetesses, and a declaration that God will confound them, and deliver their victims from their snares.”
Therefore speak to them and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘When any Israelite sets up idols in his heart and puts a wicked stumbling block…
“Omit “that cometh.” According to the multitiude of his idols - i. e., I will give him an answer as delusive as the idols which he serves. Compare Micaiah’s answer to Ahab 1Ki 22:15.”
For when any Israelite or any foreigner dwelling in Israel separates himself from Me, sets up idols in his heart, and puts a wicked stumbling block before his face, and…
“The stranger - They who sojourned among Israel, though they were not of Israel, were bound to abstain from idol-worship Lev 17:10; Lev 20:2. By myself - Or, as in Eze 14:4, “according to” Myself.”
But if the prophet is enticed to speak a message, then it was I the LORD who enticed him, and I will stretch out My hand against him and destroy…
“I the Lord hare deceived that prophet - A deep truth lies beneath these words, namely, that evil as well as good is under God’s direction.”
And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“Jer. 14; 15 is a remarkable parallel to this prophecy. Here, as elsewhere, Ezekiel is commissioned to deliver to the exiles the same message which Jeremiah conveys to the inhabitants of Judaea.”
And I will set My face against them. Though they may have escaped the fire, yet another fire will consume them.
“They shall go out ... - Rather, they have gone forth from the fire, and the fire shall devour them. The condition of the people is here depicted. The people of Israel - as a whole and as separate kingdoms - had become worthless.”
Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“Idolatry is frequently represented by the prophets under the figure of a wife’s unfaithfulness to her husband. This image is here so portrayed, as to exhibit the aggravation of Israel’s guilt by reason of her origin and early history.”
and tell her that this is what the Lord GOD says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites.
“Birth - See the margin; the word represents “origin” under the figure of “cutting out stone from a quarry” (compare Isa 51:1). An Amorite - the Amorite, a term denoting the whole people.”
I made you thrive like a plant of the field. You grew up and matured and became very beautiful.
“I caused “thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou” didst increase “and” wax “great, and thou” didst come “to excellent” beauty; “thy breasts” were “fashioned and thine hair” was grown, yet wast “thou naked and bare.””
So you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was made of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey, and oil.
“Fine flour, and honey, and oil - These were the choicest kinds of food. Into a kingdom - This part of the description refers to the reigns of David and Solomon, when the kingdom of Israel (still undivided) attained its highest pitch of grandeur.”
But because of your fame, you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot.
“The prophet now describes the idolatries of the time of the Kings. The earlier offences in the time of the Judges are not noticed, that being an unsettled time. The conduct of the people after they had “prospered into a kingdom” is to be described.”
You took some of your garments and made colorful high places for yourself, and on them you prostituted yourself. Such things should not have happened; never should they have occurred!
“Compare 2Ki 23:7. Such decoration of idol-temples in the holy land showed how the ungrateful people were devoting the wealth and energies which Yahweh had given them to the service of those false gods, in whose worship He was especially dishonored.”
And you set before them as a pleasing aroma the food I had given you—the fine flour, oil, and honey that I had fed you.
“Allusion is here made to some rite like the Roman “Lectisternia,” in which public tables were set forth for feasts in honor of idols.”
You even took the sons and daughters you bore to Me and sacrificed them as food to idols. Was your prostitution not enough?
“Borne unto me - me is emphatic. The children of Yahweh have been devoted to Moloch. The rites of Moloch were twofold; (1) The actual sacrifice of men and children as expiatory sacrifices to, false gods.”
Therefore I stretched out My hand against you and reduced your portion.
“Have diminished thine ordinary food - As a husband lessens the things which minister to the luxury of an unfaithful wife, so did the Lord cut Israel short in consequence of her unfaithfulness. Daughters - The small cities.”
So you extended your promiscuity to Chaldea, the land of merchants—but even with this you were not satisfied!
“In the land ... - Probably used in the restricted sense of the low lands on the coast of the western sea; occupied by Phoenician colonies. The children of Israel were brought into contact at first with pagans residing within their own borders.”
Men give gifts to all their prostitutes, but you gave gifts to all your lovers. You bribed them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors.
“The picture is heightened by the contrast between one who as a prostitute receives hire for her shame, and one who as a wife is so utterly abandoned as to bestow her husband’s goods to purchase her own dishonor. Compare 2Ki 16:8.”
Therefore, O prostitute, hear the word of the LORD!
“Judah is now represented as undergoing the punishment adjudged to an adulteress and murderess. Only in her utter destruction shall the wrath of the Lord, the jealous God, cease. Eze 16:36 Filthiness - Or, brass, i. e., money, is lavished.”
But I will restore Sodom and her daughters from captivity, as well as Samaria and her daughters. And I will restore you along with them.
“A denunciation of hopeless ruin. When Sodom shall be rebuilt and shall flourish, when Samaria shall be again a mighty people, then, but not until then, shall Jerusalem be restored.”
before your wickedness was uncovered? Even so, you are now scorned by the daughters of Edom and all those around her, and by the daughters of the Philistines—all those around…
“Thy reproach - Rather, the “reproach.” In his march toward Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar attacked and overthrew Damascus and other Syrian towns. The Jews exulted, not foreseeing that this was but a precursor of that ruin which should discover their own wickedness.”
Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“Ezekiel, after describing by a figure the circumstances and conditions of the Jews and Zedekiah, the vassal of the Assyrian monarch, warns them of the delusive character of their hopes of help from Egypt, protests against the perfidy which must accompany such alliance, and points…”