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
Because you have said, ‘These two nations and countries will be ours, and we will possess them,’ even though the LORD was there,
“The Lord is there, the Lord Jesus is to be there; and therefore Israel's discontinuance of possession is no defeasance of their right, but it shall be kept for them, and they shall have, hold, and enjoy it by virtue of the divine grant, till…”
You boasted against Me with your mouth and multiplied your words against Me. I heard it Myself!
“Note, In the multitude of words, not one escapes God's cognizance; let men speak ever so much, ever so fast, though they multiply words, which they themselves regard not, but forget immediately, yet none of them are lost in the crowd, not the most idle…”
This is what the Lord GOD says: While the whole earth rejoices, I will make you desolate.
“It was a national sin (the blasphemies charged upon them were the sense and language of all the Edomites), and therefore shall be punished with a national desolation.”
therefore prophesy and declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: Because they have made you desolate and have trampled you on every side, so that you became a…
“There are some that are noted for talkers, that have something to say of every body, but cannot find in their hearts to speak well of any body; God's people, among such people, were sure to be a reproach when the crown had fallen from…”
Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Surely in My burning zeal I have spoken against the rest of the nations, and against all Edom, who took My land…
“Having a love for both as strong as death, he has a jealousy for both as cruel as the grave.”
Therefore, prophesy concerning the land of Israel and tell the mountains and hills, the ravines and valleys, that this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I have spoken in…
“The earth abides for ever. Now, to show the mercy God had in reserve for the people, he is to speak of him as having a dormant kindness for the place, which, if the Lord had been pleased for ever to abandon, he would not…”
Therefore, prophesy concerning the land of Israel and tell the mountains and hills, the ravines and valleys, that this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I have spoken in…
“Fury is not in God; but he will exert his power against them and handle them as severely as men do when they are in a fury. He will so speak to them in his wrath as to vex them in his sore displeasure.”
Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: I have sworn with an uplifted hand that surely the nations around you will endure reproach of their own.
“The promises of God's favour to his Israel and assurances given of great mercy God had in store for them.”
But you, O mountains of Israel, will produce branches and bear fruit for My people Israel, for they will soon come home.
“It was a type of the heavenly Canaan, to which all God's children are heirs, every Israelite indeed, and into which they shall shortly be all brought together, out of the countries where they are now scattered.”
For behold, I am on your side; I will turn toward you, and you will be tilled and sown.
“As the curse of God reaches the ground for man's sake, so does the blessing. Now that which is promised is, 1. That their rightful owners should return to the possession of them: My people Israel are at hand to come,”
I will fill you with people and animals, and they will multiply and be fruitful.
“Their own sin had unsettled them, but now God's favour shall resettle them. When the prodigal son has become a penitent he is settled again in his father's house, according to his former estate.”
therefore you will no longer devour men or deprive your nation of its children, declares the Lord GOD.
“But the inhabitants shall live to a good old age, and not have the number of their months cut off in the midst. Compare this with that promise, Zech. viii.”
I will no longer allow the taunts of the nations to be heard against you, and you will no longer endure the reproach of the peoples or cause your nation…
“And, the restoration of that people being typical of our redemption by Christ, this is intended further to show that the ultimate end aimed at in our salvation, to which all the steps of it were made subservient, was the glory of God.”
So I poured out My wrath upon them because of the blood they had shed on the land, and because they had defiled it with their idols.
“For this God poured out his fury upon them, scattered them among the heathen. Their own land was sick of them, and they were sent into other lands.”
I dispersed them among the nations, and they were scattered throughout the lands. I judged them according to their ways and deeds.
“Their neighbours considered them rather as a holy people than as a sinful people, and therefore took occasion from the calamities they were in, instead of glorifying God, as they might justly have done, to reproach him and put contempt upon him; and God's name…”
Therefore tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord GOD says: It is not for your sake that I will act, O house of Israel, but for…
“But, one way or other, God will make all his favourites to know and own that it is his grace, and not their goodness, his mercy, and not their merit, that made them so; and that therefore not unto them, not unto them, but unto…”
I will show the holiness of My great name, which has been profaned among the nations—the name you have profaned among them.
“And this was in part fulfilled in that wonderful effect which the captivity in Babylon had upon the Jews there, that it effectually cured them of their inclination to idolatry.”
I will show the holiness of My great name, which has been profaned among the nations—the name you have profaned among them.
“We cannot sanctify God's name unless he sanctify our hearts, nor live to his glory, but by his grace. That God would give them a new heart, a disposition of mind excellent in itself and vastly different from what it was before.”
I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols.
“Christ was himself clean, else his blood could not have been cleansing to us; and it is a Holy Spirit that makes us holy: From all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you.”
I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will summon the grain and make it plentiful, and I will not bring famine upon you.
“Sin is defiling, idolatry particularly is so; it renders sinners odious to God and burdensome to themselves. When guilt is pardoned, and the corrupt nature sanctified, then we are cleansed from our filthiness, and there is no other way of being saved from it.”
Then the nations around you that remain will know that I, the LORD, have rebuilt what was destroyed, and I have replanted what was desolate.
“With us saying and doing are two things, but they are not so with God. He proposes these things to them, not as the recompence of their merits, but as the return of their prayers.”
I will attach tendons to you and make flesh grow upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath within you so that you will come to life.
“Secondly, That which was immediately done for them was that they were moulded anew into shape. We may well suppose it was with great liveliness and vigour that the prophet prophesied, especially when he found what he said begin to take effect.”
So I prophesied as I had been commanded. And as I prophesied, there was suddenly a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to bone.
“But we call in vain, still they are dead, still they are very dry; we must therefore be earnest with God in prayer for the working of the Spirit with the word: Come, O breath! and breathe upon them.”
Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
“That they were so divided among themselves, too much of the old enmity between Judah and Ephraim remaining even in their captivity.”
Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
“The application of this vision to the present calamitous condition of the Jews in captivity: These bones are the whole house of Israel, both the ten tribes and the two. See in this what they are and what they shall be.”