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
Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?
“Wo unto him that striveth with his Maker! - This verse commences a new subject. Its connection with the preceeding is not very obvious.”
I will raise up Cyrus in righteousness, and I will make all his ways straight.
“I have raised him up - That is. Cyrus (see the notes at Isa 41:2). In righteousness - In Isa 41:2, he is called ‘the righteous man.’ He had raised him up to accomplish his own righteous plans.”
Truly You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.
“Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself - That is, that hidest thy counsels and plans. The idea is, that the ways of God seems to be dark until the distant event discloses his purpose; that a long series of mysterious events seem to…”
But Israel will be saved by the LORD with an everlasting salvation; you will not be put to shame or humiliated, to ages everlasting.
“But Israel shall be saved - Referring primarily to the Jews in Babylon, but affirming the universal truth that the true Israel (compare Rom 2:28-29), that is, the people of God, shall be saved from all their trials, and shall be brought to his everlasting…”
I have not spoken in secret, from a place in a land of darkness. I did not say to the descendants of Jacob, ‘Seek Me in a wasteland.’
“I have not spoken in secret - The word rendered ‘secret’ (סתר sı̂ther) denotes a hiding, or covering; and the phrase here means secretly, privately.”
Come, gather together, and draw near, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry idols of wood and pray to a god that cannot save.
“Assemble yourselves, and come - This, like the passage in Isa 41:1 ff, is a solemn appeal to the worshippers of idols, to come and produce the evidences of their being endowed with omniscience, and with almighty power, and of their having claims to the…”
Speak up and present your case—yes, let them take counsel together. Who foretold this long ago? Who announced it from ancient times? Was it not I, the LORD?
“Tell ye, and bring them near - That is, announce, and bring forward your strongest arguments (see the notes at Isa 41:1). Who hath declared this from ancient time?”
By Myself I have sworn; truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance.
“I have sworn by myself - This verse contains a fuller statement of the truth intimated in the previous verse, that the benefits of salvation should yet be extended to all the world.”
In the LORD all descendants of Israel will be justified and will exult.
“In the Lord - It shall be only in Yahweh that they shall find justification, and this must mean, that it is by his mercy and grace.”
Bel crouches; Nebo cowers. Their idols weigh down beasts and cattle. The images you carry are burdensome, a load to the weary animal.
“Bel boweth down - Bel or Belus (בל bēl, from בעל be‛ēl, the same as בעל ba‛al was the chief domestic god of the Babylonians, and was worshipped in the celebrated tower of Babylon (compare Jer 50:2; Jer 51:44).”
“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been sustained from the womb, carried along since birth.
“Hearken unto me - From this view of the captive gods, the address is now turned to the Jews.”
Even to your old age, I will be the same, and I will bear you up when you turn gray.
“And even to your old age, I am he - Or rather, I am the same. I remain, unchangeably, with the same tenderness, the same affection, the same care.”
To whom will you liken Me or count Me equal? To whom will you compare Me, that we should be alike?
“To whom will ye liken me - (see the notes at Isa 40:18, Isa 40:25). The design of this and the following verses is to show the folly of idolatry, and the vanity of trusting in idols.”
They pour out their bags of gold and weigh out silver on scales; they hire a goldsmith to fashion it into a god, so they can bow down and worship.
“They lavish gold - The word used here means properly to shake out; and then to pour out abundantly, or in a lavish manner. It is used in connection with the idea of squandering in Deu 21:20; Pro 23:21; Pro 28:7.”
They lift it to their shoulder and carry it along; they set it in its place, and there it stands, not budging from that spot.
“They bear him upon the shoulder - They carry the idol which they have made on their shoulder to the temple, or place where it is to be fixed.”
Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me.
“Remember the former things ... - Bear in mind the repeated and constant proofs that have been given that Yahweh is the true God - the proofs derived from the prediction of future events, and from the frequent interpositions of his providence in your behalf…”
I declare the end from the beginning, and ancient times from what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’
“Declaring the end from the beginning - Foretelling accurately the course of future events. This is an argument to which God often appeals in proof that he is the only true God (see Isa 41:22-23; Isa 43:12; Isa 44:26).”
I summon a bird of prey from the east, a man for My purpose from a far-off land. Truly I have spoken, and truly I will bring it to pass.
“Calling a ravenous bird from the east - There can be no doubt that Cyrus is intended here (see the notes at Isa 41:2, Isa 41:25). The east here means Persia.”
I am bringing My righteousness near; it is not far away, and My salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion and adorn Israel with My splendor.
“I bring near my righteousness - The word ‘righteousness’ here evidently denotes his truth; the fulfillment of his promises. His righteous and true character would be manifested to them so plainly and clearly that they would be able no longer to doubt.”
“Go down and sit in the dust, O Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, O Daughter of Chaldea!
“Come down - Descend from the throne; or from the seat of magnificence and power. The design of this verse has already been stated in the analysis.”
Your nakedness will be uncovered and your shame will be exposed. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.”
“Thy nakedness - This denotes the abject condition to which the city would be reduced. All its pride would be taken away; and it would be brought to such a state as to fill its inhabitants with the deepest mortification and shame.”
“Sit in silence and go into darkness, O Daughter of Chaldea. For you will no longer be called the queen of kingdoms.
“Sit thou silent - The same general sentiment is expressed here as in the preceding verses, though the figure is changed.”
You said, ‘I will be queen forever.’ You did not take these things to heart or consider their outcome.
“And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever - This passage describes the pride and self-confidence of Babylon.”
So now hear this, O lover of luxury who sits securely, who says to herself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.
“Therefore hear now this - The prophet proceeds, in this verse and the following, to detail more particularly the sins of Babylon, and to state the certainty of the punishment which would come upon her.”
These two things will overtake you in a moment, in a single day: loss of children, and widowhood.
“In a moment, in one day - This is designed, undoubtedly, to describe the suddenness with which Babylon would be destroyed.”