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
“Man, who is born of woman, is short of days and full of trouble.
“Man that is born of a woman - See the notes at Job 13:28. The object of Job in these verses, is to show the frailty and feebleness of man.”
Do You open Your eyes to one like this? Will You bring him into judgment before You?
“And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one? - Is one so weak, so frail, so short-lived, worthy the constant vigilance of the infinite God? In Zec 12:4, the expression “to open the eyes” upon one, means to look angrily upon him.”
Since his days are determined and the number of his months is with You, and since You have set limits that he cannot exceed,
“Seeing his days - are “determined” Since man is so frail, and so short-lived, let him alone, that he may pass his little time with some degree of comfort and then die; see the notes at Job 7:19-21. The word “determined” here means “fixed, settled.””
For there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its tender shoots will not fail.
“For there is hope of a tree - This passage to Job 14:12, is one of exquisite beauty. Its object is to state reasons why man should be permitted to enjoy this life.”
If its roots grow old in the ground and its stump dies in the soil,
“Though the root thereof wax old - Though life becomes almost extinct. The idea is, though the root of the tree be very old, yet it does not become wholly lifeless. It is not like an old man, when life goes out altogether.”
at the scent of water it will bud and put forth twigs like a sapling.
“Yet through the scent of water - The word here rendered “scent” (ריח rêyach) means properly the odor or fragrance which anything exhales or emits; Son 2:13; Son 7:13; Gen 27:27. The idea is very delicate and poetic.”
As water disappears from the sea and a river becomes parched and dry,
“As the waters fail from the sea - As the waters evaporate wholly, and leave the bottom wholly dry, so it is with man, who passes entirely away, and leaves nothing. But to what fact Job refers here, is not known.”
If only You would hide me in Sheol and conceal me until Your anger has passed! If only You would appoint a time for me and then remember me!
“Oh that thou wouldest hide me in the grave; - compare the notes at Job 3:11 ff. Hebrew “in Sheol” - ב־שׁאול bı̂-she'ôl. Vulgate, “in inferno.” Septuagint ἐν ἅδῃ en Hadē - “in Hades.””
You will call, and I will answer; You will desire the work of Your hands.
“Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee - This is language taken from courts of justice. It refers, probably, not to a future time, but to the present. “Call thou now, and I will respond.””
My transgression would be sealed in a bag, and You would cover over my iniquity.
“My transgression is sealed up - The verb rendered sealed up (חתם châtham) means to seal, to close, to shut up; see the notes at Isa 8:16; compare the notes at Job 9:7.”
Were you the first man ever born? Were you brought forth before the hills?
“Art thou the first man that was born? - Hast thou lived ever since the creation, and treasured up all the wisdom of past times, that thou dost now speak so arrogantly and confidently?”
Are the consolations of God not enough for you, even words spoken gently to you?
“Are the consolations of God small with thee? - The “consolations of God” here refer probably to those considerations which had been suggested by Eliphaz and his friends, and which he takes to be the “consolations” which God had furnished for the afflicted.”
If God puts no trust in His holy ones, if even the heavens are not pure in His eyes,
“Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints - In Job 4:18, it is, “in his servants,” but no doubt the same thing is intended.”
Listen to me and I will inform you. I will describe what I have seen,
“I will show thee ... - The remainder of this chapter is a violent declamation, designed to overwhelm Job with the proofs of personal guilt.”
what was declared by wise men and was not concealed from their fathers,
“Which wise men have told from their fathers - Which they have received from their ancestors and communicated to others. Knowledge among the ancients was communicated chiefly by tradition from father to son.”
Sounds of terror fill his ears; in his prosperity the destroyer attacks him.
“A dreadful sound is in his ears - Margin, “A sound of fears.” He hears sudden, frightful sounds, and is alarmed. Or when he thinks himself safe, he is suddenly surprised. The enemy steals upon him, and in his fancied security he dies.”
He wanders about as food for vultures; he knows the day of darkness is at hand.
“He wandereth abroad for bread - The Septuagint renders this, “he is destined to be food for vultures” - κατατέτακται δὲ εἰς σῖτα γυψίν katatetaktai de eis sitos gupsin.”
For he has stretched out his hand against God and has vaunted himself against the Almighty,
“For he stretcheth out his hand against God - The hand is stretched out for battle. It wields the spear or the sword against an enemy. The idea here is, that the wicked man makes God an adversary.”
He will be like a vine stripped of its unripe grapes, like an olive tree that sheds its blossoms.
“He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine - The idea here is, that the wicked man shall be like a vine that casts off its grapes while they are yet sour and green, and brings none to perfection; compare the notes at…”
They conceive trouble and give birth to evil; their womb is pregnant with deceit.”
“They conceive mischief - The meaning of this verse is, that they form and execute plans of evil. It is the characteristic of such men that they form such plans and live to execute them, and they must abide the consequences.”
Is there no end to your long-winded speeches? What provokes you to continue testifying?
“Shall vain words? - Margin, As in Hebrew words of wind; that is, words which were devoid of thought-light, trifling. This is a retort on Eliphaz. He had charged Job Job 15:2-3 with uttering only such words.”
Surely He has now exhausted me; You have devastated all my family.
“But now he hath made me weary - That is, God has exhausted my strength. This verse introduces a new description of his sufferings; and he begins with a statement of the woes that God had brought on him.”
His anger has torn me and opposed me; He gnashes His teeth at me. My adversary pierces me with His eyes.
“He teareth me in his wrath - The language here is all taken from the ferocity of wild beasts; and the idea is, that his enemy had come upon him as a lion seizes upon its prey.”
They open their mouths against me and strike my cheeks with contempt; they join together against me.
“They have gaped upon me - Changing the form from the singular to the plural, and including “all” his pretended friends. Such a change in the number is not uncommon.”
I was at ease, but He shattered me; He seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has set me up as His target;
“I was at ease - I was in a state of happiness and security. The word used here (שׁלו shâlêv) means sometimes to be “at ease” in an improper sense; that is, to be in a state of “carnal security,” or living unconcerned in sin…”