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
So I took the cup from the LORD’s hand and made all the nations drink from it, each one to whom the LORD had sent me,
“Then took I the cup - Not actually offering the wine-cup - Holy Scripture has suffered much from this materialistic way of explaining it: but publicly proclaiming this prophecy in Jerusalem, as the central spot of God’s dealings with men, and leaving it to find…”
to make them a ruin, an object of horror and contempt and cursing, as they are to this day—Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials;
“As it is this day - Words omitted by the Septuagint, and probably added by Jeremiah after the murder of Gedaliah had completed the ruin of the land.”
all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mixed tribes who dwell in the desert;
“Arabia - That part which bordered on Palestine, and was inhabited mainly by Ishmaelites. The mingled people - Compare the Jer 25:20 note.”
So you are to prophesy all these words against them and say to them: ‘The LORD will roar from on high; He will raise His voice from His holy habitation.
“Yahweh has risen like a lion from His covert, and at His roaring the whole world is filled with terror and confusion. Upon his habitation - Against His pasture; i. e., Judaea.”
The tumult will resound to the ends of the earth because the LORD brings a charge against the nations.
“A noise - The trampling of an army in motion. Compare Amo 2:2. A controversy - i. e., a suit at law. Will plead - Or, will hold judgment. As judge He delivers the wicked to the sword.”
This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Behold! Disaster is spreading from nation to nation; a mighty storm is rising from the ends of the earth.”
“A great whirlwind - Or, storm. The coasts of the earth - See Jer 6:22 note. The thunderstorm seen first on the edge of the horizon overspreads the heaven, and travels from nation to nation in its destructive course.”
At the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came from the LORD:
“Jer. 26 is a narrative of the danger to which Jeremiah was exposed by reason of the prophecy contained in Jer. 7 and should be read in connection with it. Jer 26:4-6 contain a summary of the prediction contained in Jer.”
How dare you prophesy in the name of the LORD that this house will become like Shiloh and this city will be desolate and deserted!”
“The charge against Jeremiah was that of prophesying falsely, for which the penalty was death Deu 18:20. They assumed that it was absolutely impossible that Jerusalem ever could become like Shiloh. Against Jeremiah - unto Jeremiah.”
When the officials of Judah heard these things, they went up from the king’s palace to the house of the LORD and sat there at the entrance of the New…
“The princes of Judah - The priests could scourge a man etc., but could not then try him for his life, as the Sanhedrim subsequently did until the Romans deprived them of the power.”
Then the officials and all the people told the priests and prophets, “This man is not worthy of death, for he has spoken to us in the name of the…
“This man ... - literally, There is not to this man a sentence of death, i. e., he is acquitted by the princes and the congregation.”
At the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD.
“Of Jehoiakim - Really, of Zedekiah, as the Syriac reads (see Jer 27:3). In the Septuagint the verse is missing. Some scribe has confused the title of this chapter with that of Jer. 26.”
Send word to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon through the envoys who have come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah.
“Come - Or, are come. The ambassadors of these five kings had probably come to Jerusalem to consult about forming a league to throw off the Babylonian supremacy. The attempt failed.”
All nations will serve him and his son and grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will enslave him.
“His son, and his son’s son - Evil-Merodach and Nabonadius (see Dan 5:1 note). Shall serve themselves of him - See the marginal reference. After long servitude to the Persian and Median kings, the Selucidae ruined the remains of Babylon.”
Why should you and your people die by sword and famine and plague, as the LORD has decreed against any nation that does not serve the king of Babylon?
“Zedekiah was restless under the Babylonian yoke, and the false prophets found only too ready a hearing from him. He is addressed in the plural because his feelings were fully shared by the mass of the officers of state and by the people.”
In the fifth month of that same year, the fourth year, near the beginning of the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah, the prophet Hananiah son of Azzur, who was…
“In the beginning ... Zedekiah - Probably a gloss put into the margin to explain “the same year,” from where it has crept into the text. Gibeon - A city of priests Jos 21:17. Hananiah was probably a priest as well as a prophet.”
Within two years I will restore to this place all the articles of the house of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon removed from here and carried to Babylon.
“Within two full years - literally, In yet two years even days. Hananiah probably was induced to fix this date by the expectation that the confederacy then on foot would defeat Nebuchadnezzar.”
And I will restore to this place Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, along with all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon,’ declares the LORD, ‘for I…
“Jeconiah - Zedekiah not being popular, the people would have preferred the young king, who had not reigned long enough to make enemies. Probably also Zedekiah had started for Babylon Jer 51:59.”
The letter was entrusted to Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It stated:
“Elasah - Probably brother of Ahikam Jer 26:24, and therefore an acceptable person at the Chaldaean court. As Zedekiah had to go in person to Babylon in his fourth year Jer 51:59, this embassy was probably sent two or three years earlier.”
This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles who were carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon:
“As the exile was God’s doing for their good, they were to make the best of their position, and acquire wealth and influence; whereas if they were always restlessly looking out for the opportunity of returning home, they would rapidly fall into poverty and dwindle…”
this is what the LORD says about the king who sits on David’s throne and all the people who remain in this city, your brothers who did not go with…
“These verses are not in the Septuagint. But the text of the Septuagint is here throughout so brief and confused as to be explicable only on the supposition, that it represents what was left behind in Egypt when Jeremiah died, copied probably with extreme haste…”
Because of them, all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse: ‘May the LORD make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon…
“A curse - There is a play here of words. which probably was the cause why the death of these men passed into a proverb.”
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
“In Jer. 30–39, not all written at the same time, are gathered together whatsoever God had revealed to Jeremiah of happier import for the Jewish people. This subject is “the New covenant.””
Yes, this is what the LORD says: “A cry of panic is heard—a cry of terror, not of peace.
“Better, as in the margin. The prophet places his hearers in the center of Babylon, and describes it as convulsed with terror as the armies of Cyrus draw near.”
How awful that day will be! None will be like it! It is the time of Jacob’s distress, but he will be saved out of it.
“That day - i. e., the day of the capture of Babylon. It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble - Rather, and it is a time of trouble to Jacob, i.”
As for you, O Jacob My servant, do not be afraid, declares the LORD, and do not be dismayed, O Israel.
“These two verses are considered by some very similar in style to the last 27 chapters of Isaiah. The contrast, however, between the full end made with the pagan, and the certainty that Israel shall never so perish, is one of Jeremiah’s most common topics.”