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
I baptize you with water for repentance, but after me will come One more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.
“Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear - The word translated here as “shoes” has a signification different from what it has in our language.”
At that time Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.
“Then cometh Jesus - The Saviour is now introduced as about to enter on his work, or as about to be solemnly set apart to his great office of Messiah and Redeemer.”
“Let it be so now,” Jesus replied. “It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness in this way.” Then John permitted Him.
“Thus it becometh us - It is suitable and proper. And though you may feel yourself unworthy, yet it is proper it should be done.”
And a voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!”
“A voice from heaven - A voice from God. This was probably heard by all who were present. This voice, or sound, was repeated on the mount of transfiguration, Mat 17:5; Luk 9:35-36; 2Pe 1:17.”
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit - Led up by the Spirit. Luke says Luk 4:1 that Jesus was “full of the Holy Spirit;” and it was by his influence, therefore, that he went into the desert to be tempted.”
Then the devil took Him to the holy city and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple.
“Then the devil taketh him up - This does not mean that he bore him through the air; or that he compelled him to go against his will, or that he performed a miracle in any way to place him there.”
Jesus replied, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
“Jesus said unto him, It is written again - Again the Saviour replied to Satan by a text of Scripture - a passage which expressly forbade an act like this.”
“All this I will give You,” he said, “if You will fall down and worship me.”
“All these things ... - All these kingdoms. All these dominions Satan claimed a right to bestow on whom he pleased, and with considerable justice. They were excessively wicked; and with no small degree of propriety, therefore, he asserted his claim to give them away.”
Then the devil left Him, and angels came and ministered to Him.
“Then the devil leaveth him - He left him for a time, Luk 4:13. He intended to return again to the temptation, and, if possible, to seduce him yet from God. Compare Joh 14:30; Luk 22:53. See the notes at Heb 12:4.”
When Jesus heard that John had been imprisoned, He withdrew to Galilee.
“John was cast into prison - For an account of the imprisonment of John see Mat 14:1-13. He departed into Galilee - See Mat 2:22. The reasons why Jesus then went into Galilee were probably: 1.”
Leaving Nazareth, He went and lived in Capernaum, which is by the sea in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali,
“Leaving Nazareth - Because his townsmen cast him out, and rejected him. See Luke 4:14-30. Came and dwelt in Capernaum - This was a city on the northwest corner of the Sea of Tiberias.”
to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
“That it might be fulfilled ... - This place is recorded in Isa 9:1-2. Matthew has given the sense, but not the very words of the prophet. For the meaning of the passage as employed by Isaiah, see the notes at Isa 9:1-2.”
Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets.
“And going on from thence - From the place where he had found Peter and Andrew, Mat 4:18. Saw two other brothers - They were men engaged in the same employment, as it is probable that there were many such in the neighborhood of the…”
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
“All Galilee - See the notes at Mat 2:22. Synagogues - Places of worship, or places where the people assembled together to worship God. The origin of synagogues is involved in much obscurity.”
The large crowds that followed Him came from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.
“From Decapolis - Decapolis was the name of a region of country in the bounds of the half-tribe of Manasseh, mainly on the east of Jordan. It was so called because it included 10 cities - the meaning of the word Decapolis in Greek.”
When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain and sat down. His disciples came to Him,
“And seeing the multitudes - The great numbers that came to attend on his ministry. The substance of this discourse is recorded also in Luke 6. It is commonly called the “Sermon on the Mount.””
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit - The word “blessed” means “happy,” referring to that which produces felicity, from whatever quarter it may come. Poor in spirit - Luke says simply, Blessed are the poor.”
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“The meek - Meekness is patience in the reception of injuries. It is neither meanness nor a surrender of our rights, nor cowardice; but it is the opposite of sudden anger, of malice, of long-harbored vengeance.”
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
“Blessed are the merciful - That is, those who are so affected by the sufferings of others as to be disposed to alleviate them.”
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers - Those who strive to prevent contention, strife, and war; who use their influence to reconcile opposing parties, and to prevent lawsuits and hostilities in families and neighborhoods.”
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
“Blessed are ye when men shall revile you - Reproach you; call you by evil and contemptuous names; ridicule you because you are Christians.”
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its savor, how can it be made salty again?
“Ye are the salt of the earth - Salt renders food pleasant and palatable, and preserves from putrefaction. So Christians, by their lives and instructions, are to keep the world from entire moral corruption.”
Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
“Neither do men light a candle ... - The word rendered “candle” means any portable light, as a lamp, candle, lantern. Compare Mar 4:21; Luk 8:16; Luk 12:35.”
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
“Think not that I am come ... - Our Saviour was just entering on his work. It was important for him to state what he came to do.”
So then, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever practices and…
“Whosoever therefore shall break - Shall violate or disobey. One of these least commandments - The Pharisees, it is probable, divided the precepts of the law into lesser and greater, teaching that they who violated the former were guilty of a trivial offence only.”