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
The high-walled fortress will be brought down, cast to the ground, into the dust.
“And the fortress ... - Thy strong defenses shall be destroyed. This is spoken of Moab (compare the notes at Isa 15:1-9;Isa 16:1-14), and is designed to be emblematic of the enemies of the people of God (compare the notes at Isa.”
In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; salvation is established as its walls and ramparts.
“In that day shall this song be sung - By the people of God, on their restoration to their own land. We have a strong city - Jerusalem.”
You will keep in perfect peace the steadfast of mind, because he trusts in You.
“Thou wilt keep him - The following verses to Isa 26:11, contain moral and religious reflections, and seem designed to indicate the resignation evinced by the ‘righteous nation’ during their long afflictions.”
For He has humbled those who dwell on high; He lays the lofty city low. He brings it down to the ground; He casts it into the dust.
“The lofty city, he layeth it low - The city of Babylon (see the note at Isa 25:12; compare Isa. 13, note; Isa 14:1, note)”
Feet trample it down—the feet of the oppressed, the steps of the poor.
“The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor - That is, evidently, those who had been despised by them, and who had been overcome and oppressed by them. The obvious reference here is to the Jews who had been captives there.”
The path of the righteous is level; You clear a straight path for the upright.
“The way of the just is uprightness - The Hebrew is literally, ‘The way to the just is uprightness;’ the word ‘way’ probably refers to God’s way, or his dealings with the righteous.”
My soul longs for You in the night; indeed, my spirit seeks You at dawn. For when Your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.
“With my soul ... in the night - By desiring God in the night, and by seeking him early, is meant that the desire to seek him was unremitted and constant.”
Though grace is shown to the wicked man, he does not learn righteousness. In the land of righteousness he acts unjustly and fails to see the majesty of the LORD.
“Let favor be showed to the wicked - This is designed as an illustration of the sentiment in the previous verse - that judgments were needful in order that wicked people might be brought to the ways of righteousness.”
O LORD, Your hand is upraised, but they do not see it. They will see Your zeal for Your people and be put to shame.
“Lord, when thy hand is lifted up - This is an explanation of the sentiment expressed in the former verse. The lifting up of the hand here refers, doubtless, to the manifestations of the majesty and goodness of the Lord.”
O LORD, You will establish peace for us. For all that we have accomplished, You have done for us.
“Thou wilt ordain peace - The word ‘peace’ here seems to stand opposed to the evils of various kinds which they had experienced in the captivity at Babylon; and to refer net only to peace, but also to prosperity, and to the continued divine favor.”
O LORD our God, other lords besides You have had dominion, but Your name alone do we confess.
“Other lords beside thee have had dominion - The allusion here is to the kings of Babylon who had subdued and oppressed them, and who in their long captivity had held them in subjection to their laws.”
The dead will not live; the departed spirits will not rise. Therefore You have punished and destroyed them; You have wiped out all memory of them.
“They are dead - That is, the kings and tyrants to whom reference is made in Isa 26:13. The principal enemies of the Jews, who had oppressed them, were slain when Babylon was taken by Cyrus (see the notes at Isa.”
You have enlarged the nation, O LORD; You have enlarged the nation. You have gained glory for Yourself; You have extended all the borders of the land.
“Thou hast increased the nation - That is, the Jewish nation (see the note at Isa 9:3). The nation was not only enlarged by its regular increase of population, but many converts attended them on their return from Babylon, and probably many came in from…”
As a woman with child about to give birth writhes and cries out in pain, so were we in Your presence, O LORD.
“Like as a woman with child ... - This verse is designed to state their griefs and sorrows during the time of their oppression in Babylon.”
Your dead will live; their bodies will rise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust!
“Thy dead men shall live - Very various interpretations have been given of this verse, which may be seen at length by comparing Vitringa, Rosenmuller, Gesenius, and Poole’s Synopsis.”
For behold, the LORD is coming out of His dwelling to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.
“For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place - That is, from heaven, which is the dwelling-place or residence of God Psa 115:3; Eze 3:12; Mic 1:3.”
In that day the LORD will take His sharp, great, and mighty sword, and bring judgment on Leviathan the fleeing serpent—Leviathan the coiling serpent—and He will slay the dragon of…
“In that day - In that future time when the Jews would be captive in Babylon, and when they would sigh for deliverance (see the note at Isa 26:1).”
I, the LORD, am its keeper; I water it continually. I guard it night and day so no one can disturb it;
“I the Lord do keep it - There is understood here or implied an introduction; as ‘Yahweh said’ (compare Psa 121:3-5). I will water it every moment - That is, constantly, as a vinedresser does his vineyard.”
Or let them lay claim to My protection; let them make peace with Me—yes, let them make peace with Me.”
“Or let him - The Hebrew word rendered here or (או 'ô) means “unless;” and the sense is, the enemies of the Jewish people shall be completely destroyed as briers are by fire, “unless” they flee to God for a refuge.”
By warfare and exile You contended with her and removed her with a fierce wind, as on the day the east wind blows.
“In measure ... - This verse in our translation is exceedingly obscure, and indeed almost unintelligible. Nor is it much more intelligible in Lowth, or in Noyes; in the Vulgate, or the Septuagint.”
Therefore Jacob’s guilt will be atoned for, and the full fruit of the removal of his sin will be this: When he makes all the altar stones like crushed bits…
“By this - This verse states the whole design of the punishment of the Jews. They were taken away from their temple, their city, and their land; they were removed from the groves and altars of idolatry by which they had been so often led…”
For the fortified city lies deserted—a homestead abandoned, a wilderness forsaken. There the calves graze, and there they lie down; they strip its branches bare.
“Yet the defensed city - Gesenius supposes that this means Jerusalem. So Calvin and Piscator understand it. Others understand it of Samaria, others of Babylon (as Vitringa, Rosenmuller, and Grotius), and others of cities in general, denoting those in Judea, or in other places.”
When its limbs are dry, they are broken off. Women come and use them for kindling; for this is a people without understanding.
“When the boughs thereof are withered - This is a further description of the desolation which would come upon Babylon. The idea is, that Babylon would be forsaken until the trees should grow and decay, and the branches should fall to be collected for burning.”
In that day the LORD will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered one by one.
“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall beat off - The word which is used here (חבט châbaṭ) means properly “to beat off with a stick,” as fruit from a tree Deu 20:20.”
And in that day a great ram’s horn will sound, and those who were perishing in Assyria will come forth with those who were exiles in Egypt.
“The great trumpet shall be blown - This verse is designed to describe in another mode the same fact as that stated in Isa 27:12, that Yahweh would re-collect his scattered people.”