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
And when his mother’s brothers spoke all these words about him in the presence of all the leaders of Shechem, their hearts were inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said…
“The Ephraimite pride revolted from Abi-ezrite rulers, and inclined them to one who was a Shechemite by birth. (Compare the same spirit in the time of David and Rehoboam, 2Sa 20:1; 1Ki 12:16.)”
After Abimelech had reigned over Israel for three years,
“Had reigned - Rather, “had ruled.” It is not the phrase used in Jdg 9:6. It looks as if the Shechemites alone had made him king, and the rest of Israel had submitted to his dominion, without allowing his title of king.”
And after they had gone out into the fields, gathered grapes from their vineyards, and trodden them, they held a festival and went into the house of their god; and…
“Seditious and lawless acts Jdg 9:25-26 now broke out into open rebellion. It was at an idolatrous feast in the house of Baal-berith, on occasion of the vintage, and when they were excited with wine, that the rebellion was matured.”
So he covertly sent messengers to Abimelech to say, “Look, Gaal son of Ebed and his brothers have come to Shechem and are stirring up the city against you.
“Privily - See the margin. The word is probably the name of a place in “Tormah”, some think the same as “Arumah” Jdg 9:41.”
Then Gaal spoke up again, “Look, people are coming down from the center of the land, and one company is coming by way of the Diviners’ Oak.”
“The plain of Meonenim - Translate “the oak of the soothsayers” (see the margin). Some well-known oak, so called, but which is not mentioned elsewhere.”
The next day the people of Shechem went out into the fields, and this was reported to Abimelech.
“After Gaal’s expulsion, “the people went out into the field,” either to complete the vintage, or for some other agricultural operation. “They” (Zebul and his party) sent word of this to Abimelech.”
Then Abimelech and the companies with him rushed forward and took their stand at the entrance of the city gate.
“This verse explains the purpose of both the present and the former division of Abimelech’s forces into several companies, namely, that while some of the companies attacked the men of Shechem in the field, another company, starting from their ambush, might occupy the approach to…”
And all that day Abimelech fought against the city until he had captured it and killed its people. Then he demolished the city and sowed it with salt.
“Sowed it with salt - Expressing by this action his hatred, and his wish, that when utterly destroyed as a city, it might not even be a fruitful field. Salt is the emblem of barrenness (see the marginal references).”
he and all his men went up to Mount Zalmon. Abimelech took his axe in his hand and cut a branch from the trees, which he lifted to his shoulder…
“Zalmon - A lofty and thickly-wooded hill, as the etymology of the name (“shady”) implies, in the immediate neighborhood of Shechem: perhaps the same as Ebal.”
When Abimelech came to attack the tower, he approached its entrance to set it on fire.
“Went hard unto the door ... - i. e. went close to the door. An act of manifest danger, seeing the roof was covered with persons who would be likely to throw down missiles of all sorts on the heads of their assailants.”
After the time of Abimelech, a man of Issachar, Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo, rose up to save Israel.
“Defend - The marginal reading “to deliver,” is far preferable. The word is the same as in Jdg 2:16, Jdg 2:18; Jdg 3:9, Jdg 3:15, Jdg 3:31, etc., and is the technical word applied to the judges.”
Tola was followed by Jair the Gileadite, who judged Israel twenty-two years.
“Jair the Gileadite was probably the same person as is named in Num 32:41; Deu 3:14, as having given the name of “Havoth-jair” to certain villages in Bashan.”
So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and Ammonites,
“The previous mention of the Philistines as oppressors of Israel Jdg 3:31 seems to be restricted to the south of Judah, when they cooperated with Moab. They appear to have gradually increased in power until they reached their height in the time of Saul.”
who that very year harassed and oppressed the Israelites, and did so for eighteen years to all the Israelites on the other side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land…
“That year - Perhaps the closing year of the oppression, when the Ammonites passed over the Jordan. For it was this crowning oppression which brought the Israelites to repentance Jdg 10:10, Jdg 10:15-16, and so prepared the way for the deliverance.”
The LORD replied, “When the Egyptians, Amorites, Ammonites, Philistines,
“(See the marginal references). The Israelites were delivered from the “Egyptians” at the Exodus; from the “Amorites” in the victories over Sihon, and Og, and the five kings of the Amorites Jos 10:5; from the “children of Ammon” by Ehud; and from the “Philistines,” by…”
Sidonians, Amalekites, and Maonites oppressed you and you cried out to Me, did I not save you from their hands?
“The Zidonians - An allusion to the time of Barak, when the Zidonians doubtless formed part of the great confederacy of Canaanites under Jabin king of Hazor. See Jos 11:8. The Amalekites - In the time of Gideon (marginal reference).”
Then the Ammonites were called to arms and camped in Gilead, and the Israelites assembled and camped at Mizpah.
“The historian, having related the preliminary incidents, now comes to the final issue which forms the subject matter of his narrative.”
Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor; he was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead was his father.
“The history of Jephthah appears to be an independent history inserted by the compiler of the Book of Judges. Jdg 11:4-5 introduce the Ammonite war without any apparent reference to Jdg 10:17-18.”
So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where worthless men gathered around him and traveled with him.
“The land of Tob - To the north of Gilead, toward Damascus. The readiness with which Jephthah took to the freebooter’s life gives us a lively picture of the unsettled times in which he lived.”
But Jephthah asked them, “If you take me back to fight the Ammonites and the LORD gives them to me, will I really be your leader?”
“Jephthah made his own aggrandisement the condition of his delivering; his country. The circumstances of his birth and long residence in a pagan land were little favorable to the formation of the highest type of character.”
So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him their leader and commander.
“Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh - This phrase designates the presence of the tabernacle, or the ark, or of the high priest with Urim and Thummim Jdg 20:26; Jdg 21:2; Jos 18:8; 1Sa 21:7.”
The king of the Ammonites answered Jephthah’s messengers, “When Israel came up out of Egypt, they seized my land, from the Arnon to the Jabbok and all the way to…
“From Arnon even unto Jabbok ... - The land bounded by the Arnon on the south, by the Jabbok on the north, by the Jordan on the west, and by the wilderness on the east was, of old, the kingdom of Sihon, but then the…”
to tell him, “This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or of the Ammonites.
“Consult the marginal references. If the ark with the copy of the Law Deu 31:26 was at Mizpeh, it would account for Jephthah’s accurate knowledge of it; and this exact agreement of his message with Numbers and Deuteronomy would give additional force to the expression…”
Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh, then through Mizpah of Gilead. And from there he advanced against the Ammonites.
“Then the Spirit of the Lord ... - This was the sanctification of Jephthah for his office of Judge and savior of God’s people Israel. Compare Jdg 6:34; Jdg 13:25.”
then whatever comes out the door of my house to greet me on my triumphant return from the Ammonites will belong to the LORD, and I will offer it up…
“The words of this verse prove conclusively that Jephthah intended his vow to apply to human beings, not animals: for only one of his household could be expected to come forth from the door of his house to meet him.”