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 me because of my brokenness; my wound is grievous! But I said, “This is truly my sickness, and I must bear it.”
“The lamentation of the daughter of Zion, the Jewish Church, at the devastation of the land, and her humble prayer to God for mercy. Jer 10:19 Grievous - Rather, “mortal,” i. e., fatal, incurable. A grief - Or, “my grief.” Jer 10:20 tabernacle - i.”
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
“The prophecy contained in Jer. 11–12 seems to belong to an early period of Jeremiah’s life. The covenant Jer 11:2 was that renewed by Josiah in his 18th year, after the discovery of the Book of the Law in the temple 2Ki 23:3; while Jer…”
which I commanded your forefathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying, ‘Obey Me, and do everything I command you, and…
“From the iron furnace - Rather, out of “the iron furnace,” Egypt (see Deu 4:20). The constant reference to Deuteronomy shows how great had been the effect upon Jeremiah’s mind of the public recitation of the “Book of the covenant” found in the temple.”
This was in order to establish the oath I swore to your forefathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is to this day.”
“As it is this day - God had kept the terms of the covenant. Whether the promised land would permanently remain the property of the Jews would depend upon their observance of their part of the covenant.”
Yet they would not obey or incline their ears, but each one followed the stubbornness of his evil heart.
“I will bring - Rather, I have brought. The breach of the covenant upon their part had always brought temporal calamity. The last examples were the deportation of the ten tribes by Salmanezer, and the leading of Manasseh prisoner to Babylon in chains (2Ch 33:11).”
And the LORD told me, “There is a conspiracy among the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem.
“A conspiracy - The defection from the covenant was as general as if it had been the result of preconcerted arrangement. The decided course taken by Josiah may, however, have led the opposite party to secret combinations against him.”
For I was like a gentle lamb led to slaughter; I did not know that they had plotted against me: “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; let us…
“Like a lamb or an ox - Rather, “like a tame lamb.” Jeremiah had lived at Anathoth as one of the family, never suspecting that, like a tame lamb, the time would come for him to be killed.”
There will be no remnant, for I will bring disaster on the people of Anathoth in the year of their punishment.”
“No remnant - 128 men of Anathoth returned from exile Ezr 2:23; Neh 7:27. Jeremiah’s denunciation was limited to those who had sought his life.”
Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead before You. Yet about Your judgments I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
“Yet let me talk ... - Rather, yet will I speak with thee on a matter of right. This sense is well given in the margin.”
But You know me, O LORD; You see me and test my heart toward You.
“Thou hast seen me ... - Rather, “Thou seest me and triest mine heart” at all times, and knowest the sincerity of its devotion” toward Thee.””
“If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses?
“Yahweh rebukes Jeremiah’s impatience, showing him by two proverbial sayings, that there were still greater trials of faith in store for him.”
I have forsaken My house; I have abandoned My inheritance. I have given the love of My life into the hands of her enemies.
“Yahweh shows that the downfall of the nation was occasioned by no want of love on His part, but by the nation’s conduct. Left - More correctly, cast away.”
They have made it a desolation; desolate before Me, it mourns. All the land is laid waste, but no man takes it to heart.
“Desolate - The force of the protest lies in this word. Thrice the prophet uses it. Layeth it to heart - Rather, laid it “to heart.””
They have sown wheat but harvested thorns. They have exhausted themselves to no avail. Bear the shame of your harvest because of the fierce anger of the LORD.”
“Shall reap ... shall not profit - Rather, have reaped ... have profited nothing. The force of the proverb is that all their labors had ended only in disappointment.”
This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.”
“A linen girdle - The appointed dress of the priestly order (Lev 16:4, ...). Put it not in water - i. e., do not wash it, and so let it represent the deep-grained pollution of the people.”
These evil people, who refuse to listen to My words, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who go after other gods to serve and worship them, they…
“This verse limits the application of the symbol. Only the ungodly and the idolatrous part of the people decayed at Babylon. The religious portion was strengthened and invigorated by the exile Jer 24:5-7.”
But if you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride. My eyes will overflow with tears, because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive.
“The Lord’s flock - The people carried away captive with Jeconiah formed the Jewish Church, as we are expressly told, whereas Zedekiah and the people of Jerusalem possessed only the externals of the Church and not its reality.”
The cities of the Negev have been shut tight, and no one can open them. All Judah has been carried into exile, wholly taken captive.
“Shall be shut up - Rather, “are shut up, and no man openeth them.” The cities of the Negeb, the southern district of Judah, are blockaded, with no one to raise the siege.”
What will you say when He sets over you close allies whom you yourself trained? Will not pangs of anguish grip you, as they do a woman in labor?
“Translate, “What wilt thou say, O Jerusalem, when He, Yahweh, shall set over thee for head those whom thou hast taught to be thy bosom friends?” The foreign powers, whose friendship she has been courting, will become her tyrants.”
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Neither are you able to do good—you who are accustomed to doing evil.
“This verse answers the question, May not Judah avert this calamity by repentance? No: because her sins are too inveterate. By the Ethiopian (Hebrew: Cushite) is meant not the Cushite of Arabia but of Africa, i. e., the negro.”
This is your lot, the portion I have measured to you,” declares the LORD, “because you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood.
“The portion of thy measures - i. e., “thy measured portion” Job 11:9. Others render it: “the portion of thy lap,” the upper garment being constantly used for holding things Rth 3:15. In falsehood i. e - in idols (see the marginal reference).”
Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields—I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem!
“And thine abominations - “Even thy abominations.” The prophet sums up the three charges against Judah, namely, spiritual adultery, inordinate eagerness after idolatry (see the note at Jer 5:7 note), and shameless participation in pagan orgies.”
The nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns, but find no water; their jars return empty. They are ashamed and humiliated; they cover their heads.
“Little ones - mean ones, the common people. The word is unique to Jeremiah Jer 48:4. The pits - i. e., tanks for holding water. Covered their heads - The sign of grief.”
Although our iniquities testify against us, O LORD, act for the sake of Your name. Indeed, our rebellions are many; we have sinned against You.
“Do thou it - Rather, “deal thou, act thou for Thy Name’s sake, i. e., not according to the strict measure of right and wrong, but as a God merciful and gracious.”
This is what the LORD says about this people: “Truly they love to wander; they have not restrained their feet.
“The answer is addressed to the people. Jeremiah had prayed as their representative, but he must not intercede: for to the same degree that God was determined to punish them, to the same degree (thus) they love to continue their offence.” Compare Jer 15:6 note.”