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
I will lay the corpses of the Israelites before their idols and scatter your bones around your altars.
“Sennacherib was slain by his sons when he was worshipping in the house of his god. (4.) The sin might be read in this circumstance of the punishment; the slain men are cast before the idols, to show that therefore they are slain, because they…”
Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and…
“They are reprieved, and escape the sword, that they may have time to return to God. Note, God's patience both leaves room for repentance and is an encouragement to sinners to repent.”
This is what the Lord GOD says: Clap your hands, stomp your feet, and cry out “Alas!”
“Two things the prophet must thus lament:-- 1. Alas! for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel. Note, The sins of sinners are the sorrows of God's faithful servants, especially the evil abominations of the house of Israel, whose sins are more abominable…”
He who is far off will die by the plague, he who is near will fall by the sword, and he who remains will die by famine.
“He that is so cautious as not to venture out, but remains in the city, shall there die by the famine, the saddest death of all. Thus will God accomplish his fury, that is, do all that against them which he had purposed to do.”
I will stretch out My hand against them, and wherever they live I will make the land a desolate waste, from the wilderness to Diblah.
“It is called Diblathaim ( Num. xxxiii. 22 ), that great and terrible wilderness which is described, Deut. viii. 15 , wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions.”
This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Disaster! An unprecedented disaster—behold, it is coming!
“It is to the impenitent an evil, an only evil; it hardens their hearts and irritates their corruptions, whereas there were those to whom it was sanctified by the grace of God and made a means of much good; they were sent into Babylon for…”
Very soon I will pour out My wrath upon you and vent My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways and repay you for all your…
“Two sins are particularly specified as provoking God to bring these judgments upon them--pride and oppression. God will humble them by his judgments, for they have magnified themselves. The rod of affliction has blossomed, but it was pride that budded,”
I will not look on you with pity, nor will I spare you, but I will punish you for your ways and for the abominations among you.
“Those shall have judgment without mercy who made light of mercy when it was offered them. All this is the just punishment of their sins, and it is what they have by their own folly brought upon themselves.”
Behold, the day is here! It has come! Doom has gone out, the rod has budded, arrogance has bloomed.
“The morning discovers that which was hidden; they thought their secret sins would never come to light, but now they will be brought to light.”
The sword is outside; plague and famine are within. Those in the country will die by the sword, and those in the city will be devoured by famine and plague.
“Sin had abounded both in city and country, Iliacos intra muros peccator et extra--Trojans and Greeks offend alike; and therefore among both desolations are made. None of those that are marked for death shall escape: There shall none of them remain.”
They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will seem unclean. Their silver and gold cannot save them in the day of the wrath of the LORD.
“By their eager pursuit of it they were drawn into sin, and by their plentiful enjoyment of it they were hardened in sin; and thus it was the stumbling-block of their iniquity; it occasioned their falling into sin and obstructed their return to God.”
Forge the chain, for the land is full of crimes of bloodshed, and the city is full of violence.
“The indictment drawn up against the prisoner: The land is full of bloody crimes, full of the judgments of blood (so the word is), that is, of the guilt of blood which they had shed under colour of justice and by forms of law, with…”
The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with despair, and the hands of the people of the land will tremble.
“None of the men of might shall find their hands. What can men contrive or do for themselves when God has departed from them and appears against them?”
Then I looked and saw a figure like that of a man. From His waist down His appearance was like fire, and from His waist up He was as bright…
“He beheld a likeness, of a man we may suppose, for that was the likeness he saw before, but it was all brightness above the girdle and all fire below, fire and flame.”
Then He brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD, and I saw women sitting there, weeping for Tammuz.
“Yet such absurdities as these are those guilty of who follow after lying vanities and forsake their own mercies. Some think it was for Adonis, an idol among the Greeks, other for Osiris, an idol of the Egyptians, that they shed these tears.”
So He brought me to the inner court of the house of the LORD, and there at the entrance to the temple of the LORD, between the portico and the…
“(2.) They turned their faces towards the east, and worshipped the sun, the rising sun. This was an ancient instance of idolatry; it is mentioned in Job's time ( Job xxxi.”
Therefore I will respond with wrath. I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them.
“God will now be as deaf to their prayers as their own idols were, on whom they cried aloud, but in vain, 1 Kings xviii.”
And I saw six men coming from the direction of the Upper Gate, which faces north, each with a weapon of slaughter in his hand.
“At that gate of the temple the destroying angels entered, to show what it was that opened the door to them. Note, That way that sin lies judgments may be expected to come.”
Then the glory of the God of Israel rose from above the cherubim, where it had been, and moved to the threshold of the temple.
“Orders given to one of the persons employed, who is distinguished from the rest, for the marking of a remnant to be preserved from the common destruction,”
And as I listened, He said to the others, “Follow him through the city and start killing; do not show pity or spare anyone!
“They are warned not to do the least hurt to those that were marked for salvation: " Come not near any man upon whom is the mark; do not so much as threaten or frighten any of them; it is promised them that there shall…”
He replied, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. The land is full of bloodshed, and the city is full of perversity.
“Nothing could be said in extenuation of this sin. God was willing to show mercy as the prophet could desire; he always is so.”
Then the man clothed in linen with the writing kit at his side reported back, “I have done as You commanded.”
“Or this report was made now because the thing was finished, whereas the destroying work would be a work of time, and when it was brought to an end then the report should be made.”
Now when the man went in, the cherubim were standing on the south side of the temple, and a cloud filled the inner court.
“(2.) That the fire of divine wrath, which kindles judgement upon a people, is just and holy, for it is fire fetched from between the cherubim.”
The sound of the wings of the cherubim could be heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when He speaks.
“This noise is said to be as the voice of the almighty God when he speaks, as the thunder, which is called the voice of the Lord ( Ps. xxix.”
When the cherubim stood still, the wheels also stood still, and when they ascended, the wheels ascended with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
“Events are not determined by the wheel of fortune, which is blind, but by the wheels of Providence, which are full of eyes.”