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.
“Our God, whose special residence is there, will issue out warrants, given at that court, as it were, for the executing of judgments on the land. In Zion was the mercy-seat; thence the Lord roars, intimating that God's acts of justice are consistent with mercy,…”
“Sin stirs up the fire of his jealousy, and that kindles other fires. Let us see what is mentioned, both by way of charge and by way of sentence, that is peculiar to each of them, that every one may take his portion. Concerning Damascus, the head-city of Syria,…”
“Note, God will make a full end of those that think to make a full end of his church and people. Concerning Tyre, that famous city of wealth and strength, that was itself a kingdom,”
“(1.) The peculiar sin of Tyre is delivering up the whole captivity to Edom, that is, selling to the Edomites those of Israel that fled to them for shelter, or in any way fell into their hands; not caring what hardships they put upon them, so that they could bu…”
“Edom was so; his malice destroyed his compassion (so the word is); he stripped himself of the tenderness of a man, and put on the fierceness of a beast of prey; and, as such a one, he did tear, his anger did tear perpetually. His cruelty was insatiable, and he…”
“That which was foretold by them was to him as certain as if he had seen it with his bodily eyes. It intimates how strong he was in that faith which is the evidence of things not seen. The person by whom this prophecy was sent-- Amos, who was among the herdmen …”
“It is particularly threatened that their king and his princes shall go together into captivity, carried away by the king of Babylon, not long after Judah was. See what changes God's providence often makes with men, or rather their own sin; kings become captive…”
“The king, the chief judge, and all the inferior judges and princes, shall be cut off together. If the people sometimes suffer for the sin of their princes, yet the princes themselves shall not escape, Jer. xlviii. Thus far is the judgment of Moab.”
“They made nothing of selling a righteous man, and his righteous cause when it came to be tried before them, for a piece of silver; sentence was passed, not according to the merits of the cause, but the bribe always turned the scale, and judgment was set to sal…”
“He at length begins his charge against Israel, to which all that goes before is but an introduction. The sins they are charged with--injustice, oppression, whoredom,”
“They were of great stature ( whose height was like the height of the cedars ) and the people of Israel were as shrubs to them; and they were also of great strength, not only tall, but well-set: He was strong as the oaks. Their kingdom was eminent among the nat…”
“Note, Satan and his agents are very busy to corrupt the minds of young people that look heavenward; and many that we thought would have been Nazarites they have overcome by giving them wine to drink, by drawing them in to the love of mirth and pleasure, and dr…”
“And it is here threatened in the last three verses that, when God comes forth to contend with this provoking people, they shall not be able to stand before him, to flee from him, nor to make their part good with him; for when God judges he will overcome. Thoug…”
“The judgment of Moab, another of the nations that bordered upon Israel. They are reckoned with and shall be punished for three transgressions and for four, as those before. Moab's fourth transgression, as theirs who were before set to the bar, was cruelty.”
“And the mighty, whose should protect and deliver others, shall not be able to deliver himself, to deliver his soul (so the word is), shall not save his life. Let not the strong man then glory in his strength, nor trust in it, but strengthen himself in the Lord…”
“In Judah is God known, and therefore Judah is more than any people known of God. God has known them, that is, he has chosen them, covenanted with them, and conversed with them as his acquaintance. Now, one would think, it should follow, "Therefore I will spare…”
“Of the sins that were found among them, by which God was provoked thus to threaten, thus to punish, that they might justify God in his controversy with them, and, unless they repented and reformed, might expect no other than that God should proceed in his cont…”
“When God has come forth to contend with a sinful people it is necessary that they should understand, 1. That it is their own sin that has entangled them; for can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth where no gin is for him?”
“The secret of God is with them; it is in some sense with all the righteous ( Prov. iii. 32 ), with all that fear God ( Ps. xxv. 14 ), but in a peculiar manner with the prophets, to whom the Spirit of prophecy is a Spirit of revelation.”
“Nay, and besides the prophetic impulse which went along with the inspiration, and made the word like a fire in their bones ( Jer. xx. 9 ), they received a command from God to deliver what they had been charged with; and they would have been false to their trus…”
“If they have grown impudent in sin, let them bear the shame: " Publish it in Ashdod, in Egypt. " 1. Let them see how black the charge is, and how well proved. Let them observe the behaviour of the inhabitants of Samaria; let them look off from the adjacent hil…”
“8 The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord G OD hath spoken, who can but prophesy? The scope of these verses is to convince the people of Israel that God had a controversy with them. That which the prophet has to say to them is to let them know that t…”
“(1.) Their country shall be invaded and ruined; and observe how the punishment answers to the sin. [1.] Great tumults are in the midst of the land, and therefore an adversary shall be even round about the land; the Assyrian forces shall surround it and break i…”
“Those that stretch themselves lazily upon their couches when God's judgments are abroad shall go captive with the first that go captive. Notice is given of it to themselves,”
“Note, The pomp or pleasantness of men's houses will be so far from fortifying them against God's judgments that it will make them the more grievous and vexatious, as their extravagance about them will be put to the score of their sins and follies.”