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.
.jpg?width=640)
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
For to which of the angels did God ever say: “You are My Son; today I have become Your Father”?
“For unto which of the angels ... - The object of this is, to prove that the Son of God, who has spoken to people in these last days, is superior to the angels.”
Now about the angels He says: “He makes His angels winds, His servants flames of fire.”
“And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits - He gives to them an inferior name, and assigns to them a more humble office. They are mere ministers, and have not ascribed to them the name of “Son.””
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You above Your companions with the oil of joy.”
“Thou hast loved righteousness - Thou hast been obedient to the Law of God, or holy and upright. Nothing can be more truly adapted to express the character of anyone than this is to describe the Lord Jesus, who was “holy, harmless, undefiled,” who “did…”
They will perish, but You remain; they will all wear out like a garment.
“They shall perish - That is, the heavens and the earth. They shall pass away; or they shall be destroyed.”
Yet to which of the angels did God ever say: “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet”?
“But to which of the angels - The apostle adduces one other proof of the exaltation of the Son of God above the angels.”
We must pay closer attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.
“Therefore - Greek “On account of this” - Δια τοῦτο Dia touto - that is, on account of the exalted dignity and rank of the Messiah as stated in the previous chapter.”
how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? This salvation was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard Him,
“How shall we escape - How shall we escape the just recompense due to transgressors? What way is there of being saved from punishment, if we suffer the great salvation to be neglected, and do not embrace its offers?”
For it is not to angels that He has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking.
“For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection - In this verse the apostle returns to the subject which he had been discussing in Heb 1:1-14 - the superiority of the Messiah to the angels.”
You made him a little lower than the angels; You crowned him with glory and honor
“Thou madest him a little lower than the angels - Margin, “A little while inferior to.” The Greek may here mean a little inferior in rank, or inferior for a little time. But the probable meaning is, that it refers to inferiority of rank.”
and placed everything under his feet.” When God subjected all things to him, He left nothing outside of his control.
“Thou hast put all things in subjection ... - Psa 8:6. That is, all things are put under the control of man, or thou hast given him dominion over all things.”
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God…
“But we see Jesus - We do not see that mankind has the extended dominion of which the Psalmist speaks elsewhere.”
For both the One who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.
“For both he that sanctifieth - This refers, evidently, to the Lord Jesus. The object is to show that there was such a union between him and those for whom he died, as to make it necessary that he should partake of the same nature…”
And again: “I will put My trust in Him.” And once again: “Here am I, and the children God has given Me.”
“And again - That is, it is said in another place, or language is used of the Messiah in another place, indicating the confidence which he put in God, and showing that he partook of the feelings of the children of God, and regarded himself…”
and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
“And deliver them - Not all of them “in fact,” though the way is open for all. This deliverance relates: (1) To the dread of death. He came to free them from that.”
For this reason He had to be made like His brothers in every way, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, in…
“Wherefore in all things - In respect to his body; his soul; his rank and character. There was a propriety that he should be like them, and should partake of their nature.”
Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, set your focus on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.
“Wherefore - That is, since Christ sustains such a character as has been stated in the previous chapter; since he is so able to succour those who need assistance; since he assumed our nature that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest, his…”
For Jesus has been counted worthy of greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.
“For this man - The Lord Jesus. The word “man” is understood, but there can be no doubt that he is referred to. Was counted more worthy - Was more worthy; or is more worthy.”
Now Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be spoken later.
“Moses was faithful ...as a servant - Not as the head of the dispensation; not as having originated it; but as in the employ and under the direction of its great Founder and Author - the Messiah.”
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice,
“Wherefore - In view of the fact that the Author of the Christian dispensation has a rank far superior to that of Moses.”
where your fathers tested and tried Me, and for forty years saw My works.
“Proved me - “As if they would have made an experiment how much it was possible for me to bear.” - Doddridge. The meaning is: “they put my patience to a thorough trial.””
So I swore on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’”
“So I sware in my wrath - God is often represented in the Scriptures as “swearing” - and usually as swearing by himself, or by his own existence. Of course this in figurative, and denotes a strong affirmation, or a settled and determined purpose.”
And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
“But with whom was he grieved forty years? - With whom was he angry; see the notes at Heb 3:10. Was it not with them that had sinned - That had sinned in various ways - by rebellion, murmuring, unbelief.”
So we see that it was because of their unbelief that they were unable to enter.
“So we see ... - We see from the direct testimony of the Old Testament that unbelief was the reason why they were excluded from the promised land. Let us learn in view of the reasoning and exhortations here: (1) The evil of unbelief.”
Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be deemed to have fallen short of it.
“Let us therefore fear - Let us be apprehensive that we may possibly fall of that rest. The kind of “fear” which is recommended here is what leads to caution and care.”
God again designated a certain day as “Today,” when a long time later He spoke through David as was just stated: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden…
“Again, he limiteth - He designates, or definitely mentions. The word rendered “limiteth” - ὁρίζει horizei - means to “bound,” to set a boundary - as of a field or farm; and then to determine or fix definitely, to designate, appoint.”