The Voices
Matthew Henry
The Chester nonconformist who rose before dawn for ten years to write a whole-Bible commentary plain enough for a farming family to read at the table.
Short bio
Matthew Henry was born on October 18, 1662, at Broad Oak in Flintshire, on the Welsh border — a few months after the Act of Uniformity threw his father out of the Church of England. Philip Henry was one of roughly two thousand ministers ejected in 1662 for refusing to conform. He lost his living, kept preaching where he could, and taught his children at home. Matthew was a sickly boy who is said to have been reading Bible chapters aloud with comment at three years old. He grew up in a house where family worship happened twice a day and where nonconformity had a price attached to it. He studied under Thomas Doolittle at an academy for dissenters, then went to London in 1685 to read law at Gray's Inn — a sensible career for a man whose religion barred him from the universities. He gave it up. In 1687, at twenty-four, he was privately ordained and went to Chester as minister of a Presbyterian congregation. He stayed twenty-five years. He preached twice on Sunday, catechized the children, lectured on weeknights, visited constantly, and preached in the surrounding villages and in the county jail. The congregation grew to some hundreds of communicants and built a chapel in Crook Street. He began the commentary in November 1704. His method was ordinary and brutal: rise at four or five in the morning and write before the day's work, then take up the evening after it. He wrote for the family table — for a farmer reading aloud to his household, not for a scholar. The result is not technical. It is the text explained clause by clause and then pressed home, with a gift for the memorable line that has kept it quoted for three hundred years. In 1712 he moved, reluctantly, to a congregation at Mare Street, Hackney, in London. On June 22, 1714, riding back toward Hackney after preaching in Chester, he was thrown from his horse near Nantwich. He died that night at Tarporley, aged fifty-one. He had finished through the end of Acts. Thirteen fellow ministers completed Romans through Revelation from his notes and papers, and the whole *Exposition of the Old and New Testaments* was published in six volumes. It has never gone out of print. Its readers make the case for it better than any summary can. George Whitefield read it through four times, the last time on his knees. Spurgeon told his students in *Commenting and Commentaries* that every minister ought to read it entirely and carefully through at least once. John Wesley abridged it for his people. It sits on more shelves, in more languages, than any other commentary written in English. Sources: Matthew Henry, *An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments*; J. B. Williams, *Memoirs of the Life, Character and Writings of the Rev. Matthew Henry*; C. H. Spurgeon, *Commenting and Commentaries*; *Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry*, ed. Matthew Henry Lee.
Notable works
2 listed
| Title | Year | Description |
|---|---|---|
| An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments | 1710 | — |
| Directions for Daily Communion with God | 1712 | — |
Where to find them
Their words on MannaFest
14,170 quotes across 66 books
Where this voice speaks on the site — each quote links to the verse it was chosen for.
“He gives him a general account of the issue of the battle. David was very desirous to know how the matter went, as one that had more reason than any to be concerned for the public; and he told him very distinctly that the army of Israel was routed, many slain,…”
“He therefore asks, How knowest thou that Saul and Jonathan are dead? in answer to which the young man tells him a very ready story, putting it past doubt that Saul was dead, for he himself had been not only an eye-witness of his death, but an instrument of it,…”
“Anguish has come upon me; so we read it, as a complaint of the pain and terror his spirit was seized with. If his conscience now brought to mind the javelin he had cast at David, his pride, malice, and perfidiousness, and especially the murder of the priests, …”
“That nation, and all that belonged to it, were doomed to destruction, so that, in slaying him, David did what his predecessor should have done and was rejected for not doing. (2.) He did himself confess the crime, so that the evidence was, by the consent of al…”
“And his lying to David, if indeed it was a lie, was highly criminal, and proved, as sooner or later that sin will prove, lying against his own head. He did honourably and well.”
“David herein did not do unjustly. For, (1.) The man was an Amalekite. This, lest he should have mistaken it in his narrative, he made him own a second time,”
“It is not a divine hymn, nor given by inspiration of God to be used in divine service, nor is there any mention of God in it; but it is a human composition, and therefore was inserted, not in the book of Psalms (which, being of divine original, is preserved), …”
“(2.) The curse he entails on the mountains of Gilboa, the theatre on which this tragedy was acted: Let there be no dew upon you, nor fields of offerings,”
“The worst thing he could wish to the mountains of Gilboa was barrenness and unprofitableness to man: those are miserable that are useless. It was the curse Christ pronounced on the fig-tree, Never fruit grow on thee more, and that took effect--the fig-tree wit…”
“It is the vanity of this world that what is most pleasant to us we are most liable to be distressed in. The more we love the more we grieve. (3.) He was deeply concerned for the honour of God; for this is what he has an eye to when he fears lest the daughters …”
“In all our motions and removals it is comfortable to see God going before us; and we may, if by faith and prayer we set him before us. God, according to the promise, directed his path, bade him go up, told him whither, unto Hebron, a priest's city, one of the …”
“Thus, if we suffer with Christ, we shall reign with him, 2 Tim. ii. Nay, Christ does more for his good soldiers than David could do for his; David found lodging for them-- They dwelt in the cities of Hebron, and adjacent towns; but to those who continue with C…”
“Thus the kingdom of the Messiah, the Son of David, is set up by degrees; he is Lord of all by divine designation, but we see not yet all things put under him, Heb. ii.”
“According as our obligations were to love and honour any while they lived, we ought to show respect to their remains (that is, their bodies, names, and families) when they are dead. "Saul was your lord," says David, "and therefore you did well to show him this…”
“David's cause, being built upon God's promise, feared not the disadvantages of the ground. The pool between them gave both sides time to deliberate. The engagement was at first proposed by Abner, and accepted by Joab, to be between twelve and twelve of a side.”
“He meant, "Let them fight before us," when he said, "Let them play before us." Fools thus make a mock at sin. but he is unworthy the name of a man that can be thus prodigal of human blood, that can thus throw about firebrands, arrows, and death, and say, Am no…”
“It is true of every sin (O that men would consider it in time!) that it will be bitterness in the latter end. At the last it bites like a serpent those on whom it fawned. Joab, though a conqueror, generously grants it, and sounds a retreat, knowing very well h…”
“Yet the stout-hearted were spoiled, and slept their sleep, Ps. lxxvi. Poor honour for men to purchase at so vast an expense! Those that lose their lives for Christ shall find them.”
“The design was brave, had he been par negotio--equal to its accomplishment: but let not the swift man glory in his swiftness, any more than the strong man in his strength; magnis excidit ausis--he perished in an attempt too vast for him. How generous Abner was…”
“It is commendable for enemies to be thus respectful one to another. Abner's care how he should lift up his face to Joab gives cause to suspect that he really believed David would have the kingdom at last, according to the divine designation, and then, in oppos…”
“A fool's lips and hands enter into contention. The seat of the war was Gibeon. Abner chose it because it was in the lot of Benjamin, where Saul had the most friends; yet, since he offered battle, Joab, David's general, would not decline it, but there joined is…”
“Thus are distinctions made between the dust of some and that of others; but in the resurrection no other difference will be made but that between godly and ungodly, which will remain for ever.”
“There is a long war between them, the flesh lusted against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh; but, as the work of sanctification is carried on, corruption, like the house of Saul, grows weaker and weaker; while grace, like the house of David, grows s…”
“Perhaps David thereby hoped to strengthen his interest, but the issue of the marriage was one that proved his grief and shame. The last is called David's wife, which therefore, some think, was Michal, his first and most rightful wife, called here by another na…”
“Whether it was so or no does not appear, nor what ground he had for the suspicion: but, however it was, it would have been Ish-bosheth's prudence to be silent, considering how much it was his interest not to disoblige Abner.”