Voices and influences
Adam Clarke
The self-taught Irish Methodist orientalist who rode preaching circuits for fifty years and spent forty of them writing a commentary on the whole Bible.
Summary
This site quotes Adam Clarke 9,015 times across 66 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived 1762 to 1832.
- Quoted here most in Genesis: 673 of 9,015.
Adam Clarke
- Lived
- 1762 to 1832
- Tradition
- Methodist
5 of 9,015 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Adam Clarke died in 1832 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.
The earth was without form and void - The original term תהו tohu and בהו bohu, which we translate without form and void, are of uncertain etymology; but in this place, and wherever else they are used, they convey the idea of confusion and disorder.
The rest of the quotation
From these terms it is probable that the ancient Syrians and Egyptians borrowed their gods, Theuth and Bau, and the Greeks their Chaos.
Genesis 1:2 Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. BSB
Even a fool - He is counted wise as to that particular. He may know that he cannot speak well, and he has sense enough to keep from speaking. He is, as to that particular, a wise fool.
The rest of the quotation
A man may be golden-mouthed and silver-tongued in eloquence; but to know when and where to speak and to be silent, is better than diamonds. But who that thinks he can speak well can refrain from speaking? His tongue has no rest.
Proverbs 17:28 Even a fool is considered wise if he keeps silent, and discerning when he holds his tongue. BSB
Thoughts of peace - Here God gives them to understand, 1. That his love was moved towards them. 2. That he would perform his good word, his promises often repeated, to them. 3. That for the fulfillment of these they must pray, seek, and search.
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4. That he would hearken, and they should find him; provided, 5. They sought him with their whole heart, Jer 29:10-13.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope. BSB
Let your light so shine - Or more literally, Thus let your light shine, Ουτω λαμψατω το φως.
The rest of the quotation
As the sun is lighted up in the firmament of heaven to diffuse its light and heat freely to every inhabitant of the earth; and as the lamp is not set under the bushel, but placed upon the lamp-stand that it may give light to all in the house; Thus let every follower of Christ, and especially every preacher of the Gospel, diffuse the light of heavenly knowledge, and the warmth of Divine love through the whole circle of their acquaintance.
Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. BSB
A bruised reed shall he not break - A reed is, in Scripture, the emblem of weakness, Eze 29:6; and a bruised reed must signify that state of weakness that borders on dissolution and death. And smoking flax shall he not quench - Λινον τυφομενον.
The rest of the quotation
Λινος means the wick of a lamp, and τυφομενον is intended to point out its expiring state, when the oil has been all burnt away from it, and nothing is left but a mere snuff, emitting smoke.
Matthew 12:20 A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish, till He leads justice to victory. BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Adam Clarke 9,015 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
Adam Clarke was born at Moybeg, in County Londonderry, Ireland, about 1760 — his father said 1762, and the exact year has never been settled. His father was a schoolmaster; the family was poor. As a boy Clarke was thought slow. He learned to read late, and then read everything he could reach. He was converted among the Methodists in 1778, and in 1782 John Wesley himself sent him to the Bradford circuit in England. He was about twenty-two, with almost no formal schooling and a horse. He spent the rest of his life as a travelling preacher, moving circuits every few years as Methodist rules required — Bradford, Norwich, the Channel Islands, Dublin, Manchester, Liverpool, London. He was elected president of the British Methodist Conference three times, in 1806, 1814, and 1822, an honor almost never repeated in that era. And all along he studied. Clarke taught himself Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, Arabic, Persian, Samaritan, Coptic, and more, and became one of the finest oriental scholars in Britain without ever holding a university chair. The government hired him: for years he worked for the Records Commission on Rymer's Foedera, the great collection of English state papers, and he catalogued manuscripts for private libraries. He was elected to the Royal Irish Academy and the Society of Antiquaries. The work he is known for took forty years. The Holy Bible... with a Commentary and Critical Notes was published in eight volumes between 1810 and 1826. It is enormous, digressive, and packed with material nobody else was supplying to English readers — Hebrew and Arabic parallels, ancient customs, natural history, textual notes, and long excursions on whatever caught his eye. It became the standard theological resource of Methodism for the better part of two centuries, and it is still consulted. He was open about where he broke ranks. Clarke denied the eternal sonship of Christ: he held the Son to be fully and eternally divine, but taught that the title "Son" describes the incarnation rather than an eternal relation. Methodists argued with him about it in his lifetime and long after, and Methodist doctrine did not follow him there. He also read the tempter of Genesis 3 as a creature more like an ape than a serpent — a reading nearly everyone else rejected. The commentary carries these views plainly, and readers have always had to weigh them. He gave himself away in other directions too. He worked for the early Bible society movement, championed the Sunday school, organized mission work in the Shetland Isles, and gave away most of what he earned. He died of cholera in London on August 26, 1832, during the epidemic that swept Britain that year, still working. Sources: Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible... with a Commentary and Critical Notes; J. B. B. Clarke, ed., An Account of the Infancy, Religious and Literary Life of Adam Clarke, LL.D.; Luke Tyerman, The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley; the Dictionary of National Biography (1887), "Clarke, Adam."
9,015 quotations across 66 books
Where this voice is quoted
I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria.
“I will add unto thy days fifteen years - This is the first and only man who was ever informed of the term of his life. And was this a privilege! Surely no.”
Now Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the LORD will heal me and that I will go up to the house of the LORD on the…
“What shall be the sign - He wished to be fully convinced that his cure was to be entirely supernatural; and, in order to this, he seeks one miracle to prove the truth of the other, that nothing might remain equivocal.”
So Isaiah the prophet called out to the LORD, and He brought the shadow back the ten steps it had descended on the stairway of Ahaz.
“He brought the shadow ten degrees backward - We cannot suppose that these ten degrees meant ten hours; there were ten divisions of time on this dial: and perhaps it would not be right to suppose that the sun went ten degrees back in the…”
At that time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard about Hezekiah’s illness.
“At that time Berodach-baladan - He is called Merodach-Baladan, Isa 39:1, and by the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, and by several of Kennicott’s and De Rossi’s MSS.; and also by the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds.”
The time will surely come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon.
“Behold, the days come - This was fulfilled in the days of the latter Jewish kings, when the Babylonians had led the people away into captivity, and stripped the land, the temple, etc., of all their riches. See Dan 1:1-3.”
And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, will be taken away to be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
“They shall be eunuchs - Perhaps this means no more than that they should become household servants to the kings of Babylon. See the fulfillment, 2Ki 24:13-15, and Dan 1:1-3.”
He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists.
“Made his son pass through the fire - Consecrated him to Moloch. Observed times - ועונן veonen; he practiced divination by the clouds; by observing their course at particular times, their different kinds, contrary directions, etc., etc.”
And the LORD spoke through His servants the prophets, saying,
“The Lord spake by - the prophets - The prophets were Hosea, Joel, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Isaiah. These five following verses contain the sum of what these prophets spoke.”
this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah that the news will reverberate in the ears of all…
“Both his ears shall tingle - תצלנה titstsalnah; something expressive of the sound in what we call, from the same sensation, the tingling of the ears.”
And Manasseh rested with his fathers and was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzza. And his son Amon reigned in his place.
“In the garden of his own house - It was probably a burying-place made for his own family, for Amon his son is said to be buried in the same place, 2Ki 21:26.”
Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz; she was from Jotbah.
“He reigned two years in Jerusalem - The remark of the rabbins is not wholly without foundation, that the sons of those kings who were idolaters, and who succeeded their fathers, seldom reigned more than two years.”
And he was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah reigned in his place.
“The garden of Uzza - The family sepulcher or burying-place. It is said 2Ki 21:3, 2Ki 21:7, that “Manasseh made a grove; and he set a graven image of the grove,” etc.”
“Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him count the money that has been brought into the house of the LORD, which the doorkeepers have collected from the…
“That he may sum the silver - As Josiah began to seek the Lord as soon as he began to reign, we may naturally conclude that the worship of God that was neglected and suppressed by his father, was immediately restored; and the people began…”
Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the LORD!”
“I have found the book of the law - Was this the autograph of Moses? It is very probable that it was, for in the parallel place; 2Ch 34:14, it is said to be the book of the law of the Lord by Moses.”
So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went and spoke to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, the keeper of…
“Went unto Huldah the prophetess - This is a most singular circumstance: At this time Jeremiah was certainly a prophet in Israel, but it is likely he now dwelt at Anathoth and could not be readily consulted; Zephaniah also prophesied under this reign, but probably…”
because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its people, that they would become a…
“Because thine heart was tender - Because thou hast feared the Lord, and trembled at his word and hast wept before me, I have heard thee, so far that these evils shall not come upon the land in thy lifetime.”
‘Therefore I will indeed gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your grave in peace.
“Thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace - During thy life none of these calamities shall fall upon the people, and no adversary shall be permitted to disturb the peace of Judea, and thou shalt die in peace with God.”
And he went up to the house of the LORD with all the people of Judah and Jerusalem, as well as the priests and the prophets—all the people small and…
“The king went up into the house of the Lord - Here is another very singular circumstance. The high priest, scribes, priest, and prophets, are gathered together, with all the elders of the people, and the king himself reads the book of the covenant which…”
Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests second in rank, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the LORD all the articles made for Baal…
“The priests of the second order - These were probably such as supplied the place of the high priest when he was prevented: from fulfilling the functions of his office. So the Chaldee understood the place - the sagan of the high priests.”
Josiah also did away with the idolatrous priests ordained by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the cities of Judah and in the places…
“The idolatrous priests - הכמרים hakkemarim. Who these were is not well known. The Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic, call them the priests simply, which the kings of Judah had ordained.”
He brought the Asherah pole from the house of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, and there he burned it, ground it to powder, and threw its dust…
“He brought out the grove - He brought out the idol Asherah. See at the end of 2Ki 21:26 (note). Upon the graves of the children of the people - I believe this; means the burial-place of the common people.”
He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the house of the LORD, where the women had woven tapestries for Asherah.
“The houses of the sodomites - We have already often met with these קדשים kedeshim or consecrated persons. The word implies all kinds of prostitutes, as well as abusers of themselves with mankind.”
Then Josiah brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense.
“The gate of Joshua - The place where he, as governor of the city, heard and decided causes. Near this we find there were public altars, where sometimes the true God, at other times false gods, were honored.”
Although the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.
“The priests of the high places came not up - As these priests had offered sacrifices on the high places, though it was to the true God, yet they were not thought proper to be employed immediately about the temple; but as they were acknowledged…”
He also desecrated Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so that no one could sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech.
“He defiled Topheth - St. Jerome says that Topheth was a fine and pleasant place, well watered with fountains, and adorned with gardens.”