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
This is the word of the LORD that came to Zephaniah son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of…
“The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah - It seems likely that more forefathers of the prophet are named than is the wont of Holy Scripture, because…”
those who bow on the rooftops to worship the host of heaven, those who bow down and swear by the LORD but also swear by Milcom,
“And them that worship the best of heaven upon the - (flat) housetops This was fulfilled by Josiah who destroyed “the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz” 2Ki 23:”
Be silent in the presence of the Lord GOD, for the Day of the LORD is near. Indeed, the LORD has prepared a sacrifice; He has consecrated His guests.
“Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God - (Literally, “Hush,” in awe “from the face of God.”) In the presence of God, even the righteous say from their inmost heart, “I am vile, what shall I answer Thee?”
On that day I will punish all who leap over the threshold, who fill the house of their master with violence and deceit.
“I will punish all those that leap on the threshold - Neither language nor history nor context allow this to be understood of the idolatrous custom of Ashdod, not to tread on the threshold of the temple of Dagon.”
Wail, O dwellers of the Hollow, for all your merchants will be silenced; all who weigh out silver will be cut off.
“Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh - Literally, “Mortar” , “in which,” Jerome says, “corn is pounded; a hollow vessel, and fit for the use of medical men, in which properly ptisans are wont to be beaten (or made).”
Their wealth will be plundered and their houses laid waste. They will build houses but not inhabit them, and plant vineyards but never drink their wine.
“Therefore their goods - Literally, “And their strength.” It is the simple sequel in God’s Providence. It is a continued narrative.”
That day will be a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds…
“A day of wrath - In which all the wrath of Almighty God, which evil angels and evil men have treasured to them for that day, shall be poured out: “the” day of wrath, because then they shall be brought face to face before the…”
a day of horn blast and battle cry against the fortified cities, and against the high corner towers.
“A day of the trumpet and alarm - o that is, of the loud blast of the trumpet, which sounds alarm and causes it.”
I will bring such distress on mankind that they will walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the LORD.
“I will bring distress upon men - I will hem them in, in anguish on all sides. God Himself shall meet them with His terrors, wherever they turn. “I will hem them in, that they may find it so” .”
Seek the LORD, all you humble of the earth who carry out His justice. Seek righteousness; seek humility. Perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD’s anger.
“Seek ye the Lord - He had exhorted sinners to penitence; he now calls the righteous to persevere and increase more and more.”
Woe to the dwellers of the seacoast, O nation of the Cherethites!
“The “woe” having been pronounced on the five cities apart, now falls upon the whole nation of the Cherethites or Philistines. The Cherethites are only named as equivalent to the Philistines, probably as originally a distinct immigration of the same people .”
The coast will belong to the remnant of the house of Judah; there they will find pasture.
“And the coast shall be - Or probably, “It shall be a portion for the remnant of the house of Judah.””
Therefore, as surely as I live,” declares the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, “surely Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah—a place of weeds and…
“Therefore as I live, saith the Lord of hosts - Life especially belongs to God, since He Alone is Underived Life. “He hath life in Himself” Joh 5:”
And He will stretch out His hand against the north and destroy Assyria; He will make Nineveh a desolation, as dry as a desert.
“Zephaniah began by singling out Judah amid the general destruction, “I will also stretch out My Hand upon Judah” Zep 1:4; he sums up the judgment of the world in the same way; “He will stretch out, or, Stretch He forth, “His Hand against the…”
Woe to the city of oppressors, rebellious and defiled!
“The “woe,” having gone round the pagan nations, again circles round where it began, the “Jerusalem that killed the prophets and stoned those that were sent unto her” Mat 23:37.”
The LORD within her is righteous; He does no wrong. He applies His justice morning by morning; He does not fail at dawn, yet the unjust know no shame.
“But, beside these “evening wolves in the midst of her,” there standeth Another “in the midst of her,” whom they knew not, and so, very near to them although they would not draw near to Him.”
I said, ‘Surely you will fear Me and accept correction.’ Then her dwelling place would not be cut off despite all for which I punished her.
“I said, surely thou wilt fear Me - God speaks of things here, as they are in their own nature.”
For then I will restore pure lips to the peoples, that all may call upon the name of the LORD and serve Him shoulder to shoulder.
“For then - In the order of God’s mercies. The deliverance from Babylon was the forerunner of that of the Gospel, which was its object.”
On that day you will not be put to shame for any of the deeds by which you have transgressed against Me.
“In that day shalt thou not be ashamed for all thy doings - Because God, forgiving them, will blot them out and no more remember them. This was first fulfilled in the Gospel.”
The remnant of Israel will no longer do wrong or speak lies, nor will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouths.
“The remnant of Israel - The same poor people, the “true Israel” of whom God said, “I leave over” (the word is the same) “a poor people,” few, compared with the rest who were blinded; of whom the Lord said, “I know whom I have…”
The LORD your God is among you; He is mighty to save. He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over…
“The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save - What can He then not do for thee, since He is Almighty? What will He not do for thee, since “He will save?” whom then should we fear?”
Behold, at that time, I will deal with all who afflict you. I will save the lame and gather the scattered; and I will appoint praise and fame for the…
“Behold, at that time I will undo - (Literally, I deal with . While God punisheth not, He seemeth to sit still Isa 18:4, be silent Hab 1:13, asleep Psa 44:”