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
Do you understand how the clouds float, those wonders of Him who is perfect in knowledge?
“Dost thou know the balancings of the clouds - How are the clouds suspended in the atmosphere? Art thou so well acquainted with the nature of evaporation, and the gravity of the air at different heights, to support different weights of aqueous vapor, so as…”
can you, like Him, spread out the skies to reflect the heat like a mirror of bronze?
“Hast thou with him spread out the sky - Wert thou with him when he made the expanse; fitted the weight to the winds; proportioned the aqueous to the terrene surface of the globe; the solar attraction to the quantum of vapours necessary; to be…”
Out of the north He comes in golden splendor; awesome majesty surrounds Him.
“Fair weather cometh out of the north - Is this any version of the original מצפון זהב יאתה mitstsaphon zahab yeetheh? which is rendered by almost every version, ancient and modern, thus, or to this effect: “From the north cometh gold.””
Therefore, men fear Him, for He is not partial to the wise in heart.”
“Men do therefore - Therefore men, אנשים anashim, wretched, miserable, ignorant, sinful men, should fear him. He respecteth not any - No man is valuable in his sight on account of his wisdom; for what is his wisdom when compared with that of the Omniscient?”
Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,
“Who shut up the sea with doors - Who gathered the waters together into one place, and fixed the sea its limits, so that it cannot overpass them to inundate the earth? When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?”
when I fixed its boundaries and set in place its bars and doors,
“And brake up for it my decreed place - This refers to the decree, Gen 1:9: “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place.” And set bars and doors - And let the dry land appear.”
In your days, have you commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,
“Hast thou commanded the morning - This refers to dawn or morning twilight, occasioned by the refraction of the solar rays by means of the atmosphere; so that we receive the light by degrees, which would otherwise burst at once upon our eyes, and injure…”
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.
“It is turned as clay to the seal - The earth, like soft clay, is capable of modifying itself in endless ways, and assuming infinite forms.”
Have you journeyed to the vents of the sea or walked in the trenches of the deep?
“Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? - Of these springs, inlets, or outlets of the sea, we know just as much as Job.”
so you can lead it back to its border? Do you know the paths to its home?
“Shouldest take it to the bound thereof? - Or, as Mr. Good, translates, “That thou shouldest lay hold of it in its boundary.” That thou shouldest go to the very spot where light commences, and where darkness ends; and see the house where each dwells.”
Have you entered the storehouses of snow or observed the storehouses of hail,
“The treasures of the snow - The places where snow is formed, and the cause of that formation. See on Job 37:6 (note). Treasures of the hail - It is more easy to account for the formation of snow than of hail.”
In which direction is the lightning dispersed, or the east wind scattered over the earth?
“By what way is the light parted - Who can accurately describe the cause and operation of a thunder cloud, the cause, nature, and mode of operation of the lightning itself? Is it a simple element or compound substance? What is its velocity?”
Does the rain have a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew?
“Hath the rain a father? - Or, Who is the father of the rain? We have seen above one part of the apparatus by which God produces it; other causes have been mentioned on Job 36:27, etc. The drops of dew?”
when the waters become hard as stone and the surface of the deep is frozen?
“The waters are hid as with a stone - Here is a reference to freezing in the winter, as we may learn from some of the constellations mentioned below, which arise above our horizon, in the winter months.”
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear and her cubs?
“Mazzaroth in his season? - This is generally understood to mean the signs of the zodiac. מזרות Mazzaroth, according to Parkhurst, comes from מזר mazar, to corrupt; and he supposes it to mean that pestilential wind in Arabia, called simoom, the season of which is…”
Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?
“Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds - Canst thou produce lightning and thunder, that water may be formed, and poured down upon the earth?”
Who has put wisdom in the heart or given understanding to the mind?
“Who hath put wisdom in the in ward parts? - Who has given לשכוי lasechvi, to the contemplative person, understanding?”
when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in the thicket?
“When they couch in their dens - Before they are capable of trusting themselves abroad. Abide in the covert - Before they are able to hunt down the prey by running.”
Their young ones thrive and grow up in the open field; they leave and do not return.
“In good liking - After the fawns have sucked for some time, the dam leads them to the pastures, where they feed on different kinds of herbage; but not on corn, for they are not born before harvest-time in Arabia and Palestine, and the stag…”
I made the wilderness his home and the salt flats his dwelling.
“Whose house - Habitation, or place of resort. The barren land - מלחה melechah, the salt land, or salt places, as in the margin. See above.”
She treats her young harshly, as if not her own, with no concern that her labor was in vain.
“She is hardened against her young - See before, and the extracts from Dr. Shaw at the end of the chapter, Job 39:30 (note).”
Yet when she proudly spreads her wings, she laughs at the horse and its rider.
“She lifteth up herself - When she raiseth up herself to run away. Proofs of the fleetness of this bird have already been given.”
Does the hawk take flight by your understanding and spread his wings toward the south?
“Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom - The hawk is called נץ nets, from its swiftness in darting down upon its prey; hence its Latin name, nisus, which is almost the same as the Hebrew. It may very probably mean the falcon, observes Dr.”
He dwells on a cliff and lodges there; his stronghold is on a rocky crag.
“Upon the crag of the rock - שן סלע shen sela, the tooth of the rock, i.e., some projecting part, whither adventurous man himself dares not follow her. And the strong place - ומצודה umetsudah. Mr.”
His young ones feast on blood; and where the slain are, there he is.”
“Her young ones also suck up blood - The eagle does not feed her young with carrion, but with prey newly slain, so that they may suck up blood. Where the slain are, there is she - These words are quoted by our Lord.”