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.
The rest of the quotation
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
to whom He has said: “This is the place of rest, let the weary rest; this is the place of repose.” But they would not listen.
“This is the rest “This is the true rest” - The sense of this verse is: God had warned them by his prophets that their safety and security, their deliverance from their present calamities and from the apprehensions of still greater approaching, depended wholly on…”
So this is what the Lord GOD says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will never…
“Behold, I lay in Zion - See the notes on Gen 49:32; Psa 118:22 (note); Mat 21:42 (note); Act 4:11 (note); Rom 9:33 (note); Rom 10:11 (note); Eph 2:20 (note); 1Pe 2:6-8 (note).”
Your covenant with death will be dissolved, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be trampled by it.
“Your covenant with death shall be disannulled “Your covenant with death shall be broken” - For כפר caphar, which seems not to belong to this place, the Chaldee reads תפר taphar, which is approved by Houbigant and Secker.”
Indeed, the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket too small to wrap around you.
“For the bed is shorter - A mashal or proverbial saying, the meaning of which is, that they will find all means of defense and protection insufficient to secure them, and cover them from the evils coming upon them.”
So now, do not mock, or your shackles will become heavier. Indeed, I have heard from the Lord GOD of Hosts a decree of destruction against the whole land.
“The Lord God - אדני יהוה Adonai Jehovah. Adonai is omitted by four of Kennicott’s MSS., and in the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic.”
For his God instructs and teaches him properly.
“For his God doth instruct him - All nations have agreed in attributing agriculture, the most useful and the most necessary of all sciences, to the invention and to the suggestions of their deities.”
Grain for bread must be ground, but it is not endlessly threshed. Though the wheels of the cart roll over it, the horses do not crush it.
“The bread-corn - I read ולהם velahem, on the authority of the Vulgate and Symmachus; the former expresses the conjunction ו vau, omitted in the text, by autem; the latter by δε.”
And I will constrain Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation; she will be like an altar hearth before Me.
“There shall be heaviness and sorrow “There shall be continual mourning and sorrow” - Instead of your present joy and festivity.”
You will be brought low, you will speak from the ground, and out of the dust your words will be muffled.
“And thy speech shall be low out of the dust “And from out of the dust thou shalt utter a feeble speech” - That the souls of the dead uttered a feeble stridulous sound, very different from the natural human voice, was a popular notion…”
Therefore the LORD who redeemed Abraham says of the house of Jacob: “No longer will Jacob be ashamed and no more will his face grow pale.
“Who redeemed Abraham - As God redeemed Abraham from among idolaters and workers of iniquity, so will he redeem those who hear the words of the Book, and are humbled before him, Isa 29:18, Isa 29:19.”
For though their princes are at Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,
“Hanes - Six MSS. of Kennicott’s, and perhaps six others, with four of De Rossi’s, read חנם chinnam, in vain, for הנס Hanes; and so also the Septuagint, who read likewise יגעו yageu, labored, for יגיעו yaggiu, arrived at.”
This is the burden against the beasts of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth…
“The burden - משא massa seems here to be taken in its proper sense; the load, not the oracle. The same subject is continued; and there seems to be no place here for a new title to a distinct prophecy.”
Go now, write it on a tablet in their presence and inscribe it on a scroll; it will be for the days to come, a witness forever and ever.
“For ever and ever “For a testimony for ever” - לעד leed. So the Syriac, Chaldee, Vulgate, and Septuagint, in MSS. Pachom. and 1. D. 2: εις μαρτυριον, which two words have been lost out of the other copies of the Septuagint.”
Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message, trusting in oppression and relying on deceit,
“In oppression “In obliquity” - בעקש beakesh, transposing the two last letters of בעשק beoshek, in oppression, which seems not to belong to this place: a very probable conjecture of Houbigant.”
Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore He rises to show you compassion, for the LORD is a just God. Blessed are all who wait for Him.
“And therefore will he be exalted “Even for this shall he expect in silence” - For ירום yarum, he shall be exalted, which belongs not to this place, Houbigant reads ידום yadum, he shall be silent: and so it seems to be in a MS.”
The Lord will give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, but your Teacher will no longer hide Himself—with your own eyes you will see Him.
“Though the Lord “Though Jehovah” - For אדני Adonai, sixteen MSS. and three editions have יהוה Yehovah, many of De Rossi’s have the same reading; all my own have יהוה Yehovah.”
So you will desecrate your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, saying to them, “Be gone!”
“Ye shall defile “Ye shall treat as defiled” - The very prohibition of Moses, Deu 7:25, only thrown out of the prose into the poetical form: “The graven images of their gods ye shall burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or the…”
The light of the moon will be as bright as the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days—on the day…
“Shall be sevenfold - The text adds כאור שבעת הימים keor shibath haiyamayim, “as the light of seven days, “a manifest gloss, taken in from the margin; it is not in most of the copies of the Septuagint.”
His breath is like a rushing torrent that rises to the neck. He comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction; He bridles the jaws of the peoples…
“To sift the nations with a sieve of vanity “To toss the nations with the van of perdition” - The word להנפה lahanaphah is in its form very irregular. Kimchi says it is for להניף lehaniph.”
And the LORD will cause His majestic voice to be heard and His mighty arm to be revealed, striking in angry wrath with a flame of consuming fire, and with…
“The Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard - Kimchi understands this of the great destruction of the Assyrian host by the angel of the Lord.”
And with every stroke of the rod of punishment that the LORD brings down on them, the tambourines and lyres will sound as He battles with weapons brandished.
“The grounded staff “The rod of his correction” - For מוסדה musadah, the grounded staff, of which no one yet has been able to make any tolerable sense, Le Clerc conjectured מוסרה musarah, of correction; (see Pro 22:15); and so it is in two MSS.…”
Yet He too is wise and brings disaster; He does not call back His words.
“His words “His word” - דברו debaro, singular, without י yod, two MSS. of Dr. Kennicott’s the Septuagint, and Targ. Hieros. דרכיו derachaiv, his ways, is found in one MS.”
For this is what the LORD has said to me: “Like a lion roaring or a young lion over its prey—and though a band of shepherds is called out against…
“Like as the lion - This comparison is exactly in the spirit and manner, and very nearly approaching to the expression, of Homer.”
Return to the One against whom you have so blatantly rebelled, O children of Israel.
“Have deeply revolted “Have so deeply engaged in revolt” - All the ancient Versions read תעמיקו taamiku, in the second person, instead of העמיקו heemiku, they have deeply revolted, etc.”
“Then Assyria will fall, but not by the sword of man; a sword will devour them, but not one made by mortals.
“Then shall the Assyrian fall, etc. - Because he was to be discomfited by the angel of the Lord, destroying in his camp, in one night, upwards of one hundred and eighty thousand men; and Sennacherib himself fell by the hands of the princes, his…”