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
and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘A great eagle with great wings and long pinions, full of feathers of many colors, came to Lebanon and…
“A great eagle ... - Probably the golden eagle, whose plumage has the variety of color here depicted. The eagle (the king of birds) is a natural representative of monarchs (compare, Jer 48:40), and was an Assyrian emblem.”
But there was another great eagle with great wings and many feathers. And behold, this vine bent its roots toward him.
“Another great eagle - This is the king of Egypt, mighty indeed but not like the first. By the furrows of her plantation - From the beds, where it was planted to bring forth fruit for another, it shot forth its roots to him that…”
So you are to tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Will it flourish?
“Her spring - Rather, her growth. Even without ... - Translate; and not with great power or with much people is it to be raised up from its roots again.”
Pharaoh with his mighty army and vast horde will not help him in battle, when ramps are built and siege walls constructed to destroy many lives.
“To cast up mounts and build forts - was the business not of the relieving but of the besieging army. Translate it: when men cast up mounts and build forts to destroy many persons.”
I will plant it on the mountain heights of Israel so that it will bear branches; it will yield fruit and become a majestic cedar.
“In the mountain of the height of Israel - The parallel passage Eze 20:40 points to the mountain on which the temple stood.”
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“The last verse of Ezek. 17 gives occasion for a declaration of the principle upon which God’s providential dispensations proceed, namely, that every individual shall be equitably dealt with - a principle that precludes the children from either presuming on the father’s merits or despairing…”
He follows My statutes and faithfully keeps My ordinances. That man is righteous; surely he will live, declares the Lord GOD.
“Live ... die - In the writings of Ezekiel there is a development of the meaning of “life” and “death.” In the holy land the sanctions of divine government were in great degree temporal; so that the promise of “life” for “obedience,” the threatening of…”
Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is it My way that is unjust?
“Equal - literally, “weighed out, balanced.” Man’s ways are arbitrary, God’s ways are governed by a self-imposed law, which makes all consistent and harmonious.”
“As for you, take up a lament for the princes of Israel
“Princes of Israel - Israel is the whole nation over which the king of Judah was the rightful sovereign. Compare Eze 2:3; Eze 3:1, Eze 3:7.”
In the seventh year, on the tenth day of the fifth month, some of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the LORD, and they sat down before me.
“The elders of Israel - These were as in Eze 14:1, some of Ezekiel’s fellow-exiles, designated in general terms by the name of Israel, though more properly belonging to the kingdom of Judah.”
and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: On the day I chose Israel, I swore an oath to the descendants of the house of Jacob and…
“The children of Israel in Egypt were warned to abstain from the idolatry of the pagan. This purpose they lost sight of, yet God spared them and brought them into another state of probation. Eze 20:5 Lifted up mine hand - i.”
Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel, and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: In this way also your fathers blasphemed Me by…
“The probation in the land of Canaan from their entry to the day of Ezekiel. Eze 20:27 Yet in this - It was an aggravation of their guilt that they defiled with idolatry the land given them for their glory.”
And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“The first word of judgment Eze 21:1-7. Ezekiel speaks first to the people of Israel, shows the universality of the coming destructions, and indicates by a sign (that of sighing) the sadness of the calamity.”
Because I will cut off both the righteous and the wicked, My sword will be unsheathed against everyone from south to north.
“The righteous and the wicked - take the place of “every green tree and every dry tree” Eze 20:47; “all faces” that of “all flesh:” to show the universality of the destructions. National judgment involves the innocent in the temporal ruin of the guilty.”
Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“The second word of judgment: the glittering and destroying sword. The passage may be called the “Lay of the Sword;” it is written in the form of Hebrew poetry, with its characteristic parallelism.”
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“The third word of judgment. The king of Babylon’s march upon Judaea and upon the Ammonites. Destruction is to go forth not on Judah only, but also on such neighboring tribes as the Ammonites (compare Jer 27:2-3). Eze 21:19 Appoint thee - Set before thee.”
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“The fourth word of judgment Ezek. 22:1-16. The sins which have brought ruin upon Jerusalem are the sins which disgraced the pagan inhabitants of Canaan, whom the Israelites were to cast out (compare Lev. 18). The commission of like sins would insure like judgment.”
you are guilty of the blood you have shed, and you are defiled by the idols you have made.
“Thy days, - i. e., of judgment; “thy years,” i. e., of visitation (compare Eze 20:25, Eze 20:39). A reproach ... a mocking - Judah shall be like the Ammonites Eze 21:28.”
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“The fifth word of judgment. The furnace. In the besieged city the people shall be tried and purged. Eze 22:18 Dross - A frequent metaphor which denotes not only the corruption of the people, who have become like base metal, but also a future purification…”
And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“The sixth word of judgment. The special sins of princes, priests, and people. Eze 22:26 Violated - Better as in margin; to offer “violence” to the Law is to misinterpret it.”
The older was named Oholah, and her sister was named Oholibah. They became Mine and gave birth to sons and daughters.
“Aholah ... and Aholibah - More correctly “Oholah” (“her own tent or tabernacle”) and “Oholibah” (“My tent or tabernacle is in her”): names chosen to express that after the division Israel set up her own tabernacle in the place of the temple in which God…”
Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet in her lust and prostitution she was more depraved than her sister.
“The idolatries of Manasseh’s reign exceeded all that had gone before either in Israel or in Judah 2 Kings 21:1-16; 2Ch 33:1-10.”
But Oholibah carried her prostitution even further. She saw the men portrayed on the wall, images of the Chaldeans, engraved in vermilion,
“After Israel’s captivity Judah intrigued first with Assyria, then with Babylon, courting their monarchs, imitating their customs, and learning their idolatries.”
Then the Babylonians came to her, to the bed of love, and in their lust they defiled her.
“After Josiah’s death and the usurpation of dominion by the Egyptians, the Babylonians were no doubt welcomed as friends 2Ki 24:1.”
Yet she multiplied her promiscuity, remembering the days of her youth, when she had prostituted herself in the land of Egypt
“Egypt - The kings of Judah played alternately Egypt against Babylon, and Babylon against Egypt. Jehoahaz was displaced by Necho for Jehoiakim, who then turned to the Chaldaeans, and afterward rebelling sought aid from Egypt.”