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
you will die in peace. As spices were burned for your fathers, the former kings who preceded you, so people will burn spices for you and lament, ‘Alas, O master!’
“In peace - See Jer 12:12 note. Burn odors - “Make a burning.” The burning was probably that of piles of wood, and spices were added only as an special honor. It was not a Jewish custom to burn the dead.”
as the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and the remaining cities of Judah—against Lachish and Azekah.
“This marks the exact time, that it was early in the campaign, while the outlying fortresses still occupied the attention of Nebuchadnezzars army.”
and I brought them into the house of the LORD, to a chamber occupied by the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah, a man of God.
“The title man of God, i. e., prophet, belongs to Hanan, identified by many with Hanani 2Ch 16:7. The sons of Hanan were probably his disciples.”
So when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched into the land, we said: ‘Come, let us go into Jerusalem to escape the armies of the Chaldeans and the Arameans.’
“The Syrians - The Septuagint substitutes Assyrians for Syrians, but marauding bands of the Aramaeans are probably meant.”
“This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Go and tell the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem: ‘Will you not accept discipline and…
“Jeremiah, accompanied by the main body of the Rechabites, went into one of the courts of the temple, and there addressed to the people the rebuke following.”
this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Jonadab son of Rechab will never fail to have a man to stand before Me.’”
“Travelers bear witness to the existence of a large tribe who represent themselves as the descendants of the Rechabites.”
In the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
“In the fourth year of Jehoiakim - See Jer 25:1 note. The present chapter belongs to the very end of that year. The capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar took place early in Jehoiakim’s fourth year, long before the writing of Jehoiakim’s scroll.”
Now in the ninth month of the fifth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, a fast before the LORD was proclaimed to all the people of Jerusalem…
“The ninth month answers to our December, and the fast was probably in commemoration of the capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans in the previous year.”
From the chamber of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe, which was in the upper courtyard at the opening of the New Gate of the house of the LORD, Baruch…
“Gemariah seems to have inherited his father’s office of public scribe or secretary of state (see 2Ki 22:3). As brother of Ahikam, he would be favorable to Jeremiah.”
he went down to the scribe’s chamber in the king’s palace, where all the officials were sitting: Elishama the scribe, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Achbor, Gemariah son…
“The scribe’s chamber - The chancery in which the king’s business was conducted. Probably Elishama was one of the “principal scribes of the host” Jer 52:25, i. e., the secretary of state for war.”
Then all the officials sent word to Baruch through Jehudi son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, saying, “Bring the scroll that you read in the…
“Jehudi signifies a Jew and Cushi an Ethiopian, but it seems reasonable to conclude that they are genuine, proper names.”
When they had heard all these words, they turned to one another in fear and said to Baruch, “Surely we must report all these words to the king.”
“They were afraid both one and other - literally, “they trembled each to his neighbor,” i. e., they showed their alarm by their looks and gestures one to another.”
“It was at his dictation,” Baruch replied. “He recited all these words to me and I wrote them in ink on the scroll.”
“He pronounced - He used to say aloud, he dictated. Baruch’s office was merely mechanical. He contributed nothing but hand, pen, and ink.”
And as soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns, Jehoiakim would cut them off with a scribe’s knife and throw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll…
“Leaves - Columns: literally folding-doors; the word exactly describes the shape of the columns of writing upon the scroll. Penknife - “Scribe’s knife;” used to shape the reed for writing, and to make erasures in the parchment. On the hearth - Or, in the fire-pan.”
You are to proclaim concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah that this is what the LORD says: You have burned the scroll and said, ‘Why have you written on it that…
“The king of Babylon ... - These words do not prove that Nebuchadnezzar had not already come, and compelled Jehoiakim to become his vassal.”
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made Zedekiah son of Josiah the king of Judah, and he reigned in place of Coniah son of Jehoiakim.
“It is evident that Zedekiah was well affected toward Jeremiah. In Jer. 37–38, dealing with events during the siege of Jerusalem, we have an account of his relations with Jeremiah and of the prophet’s personal history up to the capture of the city.”
Yet King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, to Jeremiah the prophet with the message, “Please pray to the LORD our God…
“This embassy is not to be confounded with that Jer 21:1 which took place when Nebuchadnezzar was just marching upon Jerusalem; this was in the brief interval of hope occasioned by the approach of an Egyptian army to raise the siege.”
Pharaoh’s army had left Egypt, and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report, they withdrew from Jerusalem.
“Then - And. Pharaoh-Hophra Jer 44:30, the Apries of Herodotus, probably withdrew without giving Nebuchadnezzar battle. After a reign of 25 years, he was dethroned by Amasis, but allowed to inhabit his palace at Sais, where finally he was strangled.”
“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says that you are to tell the king of Judah, who sent you to Me: Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has marched…
“Jeremiah’s answer here is even more unfavorable than that which is given in Jer 21:4-7. So hopeless is resistance that the disabled men among the Chaldaeans would alone suffice to capture the city and burn it to the ground.”
But when he reached the Gate of Benjamin, the captain of the guard, whose name was Irijah son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, seized him and said, “You are…
“A captain of the ward - Captain of the watch, whose business was to examine all who went in and out. The gate of Benjamin - The northern gate, also called the gate of Ephraim. Thou fallest away ...”
“That is a lie,” Jeremiah replied. “I am not deserting to the Chaldeans!” But Irijah would not listen to him; instead, he arrested Jeremiah and took him to the officials.
“The princes - Not the noblemen trained in the days of Josiah and Jeremiah’s friends Jer 26:16, but those described in Jer 24:8. They assumed that the accusation was true; they first scourged and then imprisoned Jeremiah.”
So King Zedekiah gave orders for Jeremiah to be placed in the courtyard of the guard and given a loaf of bread daily from the street of the bakers, until…
“The prison - the watch (marginal reference). Piece - literally, a circle, i. e., a round cake. The bakers’ street - It is usual in oriental towns for each trade to have a special place set apart for it. Compare Act 10:6.”
Then the officials said to the king, “This man ought to die, for he is discouraging the warriors who remain in this city, as well as all the people, by…
“For thus ... - Because he makes the men of war dispirited. No doubt this was true. Jeremiah, however, did not speak as a private person, but as the representative of the government; the temporal ruler in a theocracy being responsible directly to God.”
So they took Jeremiah and dropped him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard.
“The dungeon - The cistern. Every house in Jerusalem was supplied with a subterranean cistern, so well constructed that the city never suffered in a siege from want of water.”
Now Ebed-melech the Cushite, a court official in the royal palace, heard that Jeremiah had been put into the cistern. While the king was sitting at the Gate of Benjamin,
“Ebed-melech - i. e., the king’s slave. By “Ethiopian” or Cushite is meant the Cushite of Africa, or negro.”