Voices and influences
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.
Summary
This site quotes Matthew Henry 7,276 times across 66 books, and lists 2 works.
- Lived 1662 to 1714, Welsh.
- Quoted here most in Psalms: 748 of 7,276.
Matthew Henry
- Lived
- 1662 to 1714
- Nation
- Welsh
- Tradition
- Puritan
- Body
- Presbyterian
5 of 7,276 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Matthew Henry died in 1714 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.
When things are at the worst they will begin to mend; and he will give them to see the glorious perfection of their deliverance; for, as for God, his work is perfect.
Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
The rest of the quotation
He that in the beginning finished the heavens and the earth, and all the hosts of both, will finish all the blessings of both to his people. When he begins in ways of mercy he will make an end.
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
(2.) We must love mercy; we must delight in it, as our God does, must be glad of an opportunity to do good, and do it cheerfully.
Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
The rest of the quotation
Justice is put before mercy, for we must not give that in alms which is wrongfully got, or with which our debts should be paid.
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
Though all are sinners, yet some are greater sinners than others. The men of Sodom were sinners of the first magnitude, sinners before the Lord, that is, impudent daring sinners; they were so to a proverb.
Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
Genesis 13:13 But the men of Sodom were wicked, sinning greatly against the LORD. BSB
Note, Some sins, and the sins of some sinners, cry aloud to heaven for vengeance. The iniquity of Sodom was crying iniquity, that is, it was so very provoking that it even urged God to punish.
Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
Genesis 18:20 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great. Because their sin is so grievous, BSB
It is justice, as well as wisdom, to do thus, in perptuam rei memoriam--that the circumstance may be perpetually remembered.
Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
Genesis 21:30 He replied, “You are to accept the seven ewe lambs from my hand as my witness that I dug this well.” BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Matthew Henry 7,276 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
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.
2 works
How to read this voice
An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments
1710
Not quoted on this site yet
Directions for Daily Communion with God
1712
Not quoted on this site yet
Their whole shelf sits at Matthew Henry Commentary (CCEL) and Blue Letter Bible - Matthew Henry.
7,276 quotations across 66 books
Where this voice is quoted
so that Your name will be magnified forever when it is said, ‘The LORD of Hosts is God over Israel.’
“"Whether I be magnified or no, let thy name be magnified. " And he reckons that nothing magnifies God's name more than this, to say, with suitable affections, The Lord of hosts is the God over Israel.”
Now therefore, may it please You to bless the house of Your servant, that it may continue forever before You.
“When Christ for ever sat down on the right hand of God ( Heb. x. 12 ), and received all possible assurance that his seed and throne shall be as the days of heaven, this prayer of David the son of Jesse for his seed…”
Some time later, David defeated the Philistines, subdued them, and took Metheg-ammah from the hand of the Philistines.
“Metheg-ammah was Gath (the chief and royal city of the Philistines) and the towns belonging to it, among which there was a constant garrison kept by the Philistines on the hill Ammah ( 2 Sam. ii.”
David captured from him a thousand chariots, seven thousand charioteers, and twenty thousand foot soldiers, and he hamstrung all the horses except a hundred he kept for the chariots.
“4 they are said to be 7000. If they divided their horse by ten in a company, as it is probable they did, the captains and companies were 700, but the horsemen were 7000.”
Then he placed garrisons in Aram of Damascus, and the Arameans became subject to David and brought him tribute. So the LORD made David victorious wherever he went.
“Associate yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces, Isa. viii. David was protected: The Lord preserved him whithersoever he went.”
and King David dedicated these to the LORD, along with the silver and gold he had dedicated from all the nations he had subdued— from Edom and Moab, from the…
“This crowned all his victories, and made them far to out-shine Alexander's or Caesar's, that they sought their own glory, but he aimed at the glory of God.”
And David made a name for himself when he returned from striking down eighteen thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt.
“He got himself a name for all that conduct and courage which are the praise of a great and distinguished general.”
Thus David reigned over all Israel and administered justice and righteousness for all his people:
“Herein he was a type of Christ, who was faithful and true, and who doth in righteousness both judge and make war, Rev. xix. He kept good order and good officers in his court.”
“Do not be afraid,” said David, “for surely I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan.
“(3.) He gives him, by grant from the crown, all the land of Saul his father, that is, his paternal estate, which was forfeited by Ishbosheth's rebellion and added to his own revenue.”
And Ziba said to the king, “Your servant will do all that my lord the king has commanded.”
“How unfaithful Ziba was to him we shall find afterwards, ch. xvi. Now because David was a type of Christ, his Lord and son, his root and offspring, let his kindness to Mephibosheth serve to illustrate the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards…”
When this was reported to David, he sent messengers to meet the men, since they had been thoroughly humiliated.
“The Jews wore their beards long, reckoning it an honour to appear aged and grave; and therefore it was not fit that persons of their rank and figure should appear at court unlike their neighbours.”
On hearing this, David sent Joab and the entire army of mighty men.
“Those that are at war with the Son of David not only give the provocation, but begin the war; for he waits to be gracious, but they strengthen themselves against him, and therefore, if they turn not, he will whet his sword, Ps. vii.”
The Ammonites marched out and arrayed themselves for battle at the entrance of the city gate, while the Arameans of Zobah and Rehob and the men of Tob and Maacah…
“Joab, like a wise general, was soon aware of the design, and accordingly divided his forces: the choicest men he took under his own command, to fight the Syrians, whom probably he knew to be the better soldiers, and, being hired men, better versed in…”
When the Ammonites saw that the Arameans had fled, they too fled before Abishai, and they entered the city.
“The Syrians were first routed by Joab, and then the Ammonites by Abishai; the Ammonites seem not to have fought at all, but, upon the retreat of the Syrians, to have fled into the city.”
In the spring, at the time when kings march out to war, David sent out Joab and his servants with the whole army of Israel.
“To the war with the Syrians David went in person, ch. x. Had he been now at his post at the head of his forces, he would have been out of the way of this temptation.”
In the spring, at the time when kings march out to war, David sent out Joab and his servants with the whole army of Israel.
“The sin he was guilty of was adultery, against the letter of the seventh commandment, and (in the judgment of the patriarchal age) a heinous crime, and an iniquity to be punished by the judges ( Job xxxi.”
One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman.
“The sin came in at the eye, as Eve's did. Perhaps he sought to see her, at least he did not practise according to his own prayer, Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity, and his son's caution in a like case, Look not thou…”
When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the troops were doing with the war.
“Thus does he pretend a more than ordinary concern for his army when that was the least thing in his thoughts; if he had not had another turn to serve, an express of much less figure than Uriah might have sufficed to bring him a…”
But Uriah slept at the door of the palace with all his master’s servants; he did not go down to his house.
“Whether he suspected any thing or no, Providence put this resolution into his heart, and kept him to it, for the discovering of David's sin, and that the baffling of his design to conceal it might awaken David's conscience to confess it and repent of…”
The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
“It is resolved in David's breast (which one would think could never possibly have harboured so vile a thought) that Uriah must die. That innocent, valiant, gallant man, who was ready to die for his prince's honour, must die by his prince's hand.”
The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
“Uriah cannot thus die alone: the party he commands is in danger of being cut off with him; and it proved so: some of the people, even the servants of David (so they are called, to aggravate David's sin in being so prodigal of their…”
Then David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Do not let this matter upset you, for the sword devours one as well as another.
“This point being gained, he can make light of the loss, and turn it off easily with an excuse: The sword devours one as well as another; it was a chance of war, nothing more common.”
When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.
“Note, God sees and hates sin in his own people. Nay, the nearer any are to God in profession the more displeasing to him their sins are; for in them there is more ingratitude, treachery, and reproach, than in the sins of others.”
Why then have you despised the command of the LORD by doing evil in His sight?
“In all this he despised the word of the Lord (so it is in the Hebrew), not only his commandment in general which forbade such things, but the particular word of promise which God had, by Nathan, sent to him some time before, that he…”
Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
“Can the mercy and the sword consist with each other? Yes, those may lie under great and long afflictions who yet shall not be excluded from the grace of the covenant. The reason given is, Because thou hast despised me.”