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
Night pierces my bones, and my gnawing pains never rest.
“My bones are pierced in me - The bones are often represented in the Scriptures as the seat of acute pain; Psa 6:2; Psa 22:14; Psa 31:10; Psa 38:3; Psa 42:10; Pro 14:30; compare Job 20:11.”
He throws me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ashes.
“He hath cast me into the mire - That is, God has done it. In this book the name of God is often understood where the speaker seems to avoid it, in order that it may not be needlessly repeated.”
You have ruthlessly turned on me; You oppose me with Your strong hand.
“Thou art become cruel to me - Margin, turned to be. This language, applied to God, seems to be harsh and irreverent, and it may well be inquired whether the word cruel does not express an idea which Job did not intend.”
Yes, I know that You will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.
“For I know that thou wilt bring me to death - This is the language of despair. Occasionally Job seems to have had an assurance that his calamities would pass by, and that God would show himself to be his friend on earth (compare the…”
Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has my soul not grieved for the needy?
“Did not I weep ... - Job here appeals to his former life, and says that it had been a characteristic of his life to manifest compassion to the afflicted and the poor.”
But when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, darkness fell.
“When I looked for good - When I supposed that respect would be shown me; or when I looked forward to an honored old age.”
I am churning within and cannot rest; days of affliction confront me.
“My bowels boiled - Or rather, My bowels boil - for he refers to his present circumstances, and not to the past. It is clear that by this phrase he designs to describe deep affliction.”
I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of ostriches.
“I am a brother to dragons - That is, my loud complaints and cries resemble the doleful screams of wild animals, or of the most frightful monsters. The word “brother” is often used in this sense, to denote similarity in any respect.”
My harp is tuned to mourning and my flute to the sound of weeping.
“My harp also is turned to mourning - What formerly gave cheerful sounds, now gives only notes of plaintiveness and lamentation. The harp was probably an instrument originally designed to give sounds of joy. For a description of it, see the notes at Isa 5:12.”
“I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze with desire at a virgin?
“I made a covenant with mine eyes - The first virtue of his private life to which Job refers is chastity.”
Does not disaster come to the unjust and calamity to the workers of iniquity?
“Is not destruction to the wicked? - That is, Job says that he was well aware that destruction would overtake the wicked, and that if he had given indulgence to impure desires he could have looked for nothing else.”
Does He not see my ways and count my every step?
“Doth he not see my ways? - This either means that God was a witness of all that he did - his thoughts, words, and deeds, and would punish him if he had given indulgence to improper feelings and thoughts; or that since God saw…”
If I have walked in falsehood or my foot has rushed to deceit,
“If I have walked with vanity - This is the second specification in regard to his private deportment. He says that his life had been sincere, upright, honest.”
let God weigh me with honest scales, that He may know my integrity.
“Let me be weighed in an even balance - Margin, him weigh me in balances of justice. That is, let him ascertain exactly my character, and treat me accordingly.”
If my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has followed my eyes, or if impurity has stuck to my hands,
“If my step hath turned out of the way - The path in which I ought to walk - the path of virtue.”
If my heart has been enticed by my neighbor’s wife, or I have lurked at his door,
“If mine heart have been deceived by a woman - If I have been enticed by her beauty. The word rendered “deceived” פתה pâthâh means to open, to expand.”
For that would be a heinous crime, an iniquity to be judged.
“For this is an heinous crime - This expresses Job’s sense of the enormity of such an offence. He felt that there was no palliation for it; he would in no way, and on no pretence, attempt to vindicate it.”
what will I do when God rises to judge? How will I answer when called to account?
“What then shall I do when God riseth up? - That is, when he rises up to pronounce sentence upon people, or to execute impartial justice.”
Did not He who made me in the womb also make them? Did not the same One form us in the womb?
“Did not he that made me in the womb make him? - Had we not one and the same Creator, and have we not consequently the same nature? We may observe in regard to this sentiment, (1.)”
If I have denied the desires of the poor or allowed the widow’s eyes to fail,
“If I have withheld the poor from their desire - Job now turns to another class of virtues, regarded also as of great importance in the patriarchal ages, kindness to the poor and the afflicted; to the fatherless and the widow.”
if I have eaten my morsel alone, not sharing it with the fatherless—
“Or have eaten my morsel myself alone - If I have not imparted what I had though ever so small, to others. This was in accordance with the Oriental laws of hospitality.”
if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless because I saw that I had support in the gate,
“If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless - That is, if I have taken advantage of my rank, influence, and power, to oppress and injure him.”
For calamity from God terrifies me, and His splendor I cannot overpower.
“For destruction from God was a terror to me - The destruction which God would bring upon one who was guilty of the crime here specified, awed and restrained me. He was deterred from this crime of oppressing the fatherless by the fear of God.”
If I have put my trust in gold or called pure gold my security,
“If I have made gold my hope - That is, if I have put my trust in gold rather than in God; if I have fixed my affections with idolatrous attachment on riches rather than on my Maker.”
if I have rejoiced in my great wealth because my hand had gained so much,
“If I have rejoiced because my wealth was great - That is, if I have rejoiced as if I might now confide in it, or put my trust in it.”