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
Slash to the right; set your blade to the left—wherever your blade is directed.
“That fire will never go out on this earth for want of fuel. And such various methods God has of meeting with sinners that the sword of his justice is still as it was at first when it flamed in the hand of the cherubim…”
I too will strike My hands together, and I will satisfy My wrath.’ I, the LORD, have spoken.”
“God is in earnest in pronouncing this sentence upon them, and therefore the prophet must show himself in earnest in publishing it.”
“Now you, son of man, mark out two roads for the sword of the king of Babylon to take, both starting from the same land.
“The sword must go either to Rabbath or to Judah in Jerusalem. Many of the inhabitants of Judah had now taken shelter in Jerusalem, and all the interests of the country were bound up in the safety of the city, and therefore it is called…”
For the king of Babylon stands at the fork in the road, at the junction of the two roads, to seek an omen: He shakes the arrows, he consults the…
“Though he was a prince of great foresight and great resolution, yet, it seems, he knew neither his own interest nor his own mind.”
In his right hand appears the portent for Jerusalem, where he is to set up battering rams, to call for the slaughter, to lift a battle cry, to direct the…
“Orders are given to provide every thing necessary for carrying on the siege with vigour; battering rams must be prepared and forts built. O what pains, what cost, are men at to destroy one another!”
And you, O profane and wicked prince of Israel, the day has come for your final punishment.’
“He was not so bad as some of his predecessors, and yet bad enough to merit his character. He was himself profane, lost to every thing that is virtuous and sacred.”
This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Remove the turban, and take off the crown. Things will not remain as they are: Exalt the lowly and bring low the exalted.
“This is mentioned here for the comfort of those who feared that the promise made in David would fail for evermore. "No," says God, "that promise is sure, for the Messiah's kingdom shall last for ever." The Destruction of the Ammonites.”
Now prophesy, son of man, and declare that this is what the Lord GOD says concerning the Ammonites and their contempt: ‘A sword!
“When we speak to people about their souls we should study plainness, and express ourselves as we may be the best understood. Christ expounded his parables to his disciples, Mark iv.”
while they offer false visions for you and lying divinations about you—to be placed on the necks of the wicked who are slain, whose day has come, the time of…
“We shall meet with this again, ch. xxv. Note, Those are ripening apace for misery who trample upon the people of God in their distress, whereas they ought to tremble when judgment begins at the house of God.”
Return the sword to its sheath! In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.
“Thy blood shall be shed not only in thy borders, but in the midst of thy land. Lastly, I shall be an irreparable ruin: "Though thou mayest think to recover thyself, it is in vain to think of it; thou shalt be no more remembered…”
I will pour out My anger upon you; I will breathe the fire of My fury against you; I will hand you over to brutal men, skilled in destruction.
“The least drop of divine indignation and wrath will create tribulation and anguish enough to the soul of man that does evil; what then would a full stream of that indignation and wrath do?”
you are guilty of the blood you have shed, and you are defiled by the idols you have made.
“This crime is insisted most upon, for it was Jerusalem's measure-filling sin more than any; it is said to be that which the Lord would not pardon, 2 Kings xxiv. (1.)”
You have despised My holy things and profaned My Sabbaths.
“Sabbath-breaking is an iniquity that is an inlet to all iniquity. Many have owned it to contribute as much to their ruin as any thing.”
In you they take bribes to shed blood. You engage in usury, take excess interest, and extort your neighbors. But Me you have forgotten, declares the Lord GOD.
“Those that pervert their ways forget the Lord their God, Jer. iii. He is to pass sentence upon Jerusalem for these crimes.”
Will your courage endure or your hands be strong in the day I deal with you? I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will act.
“(1.) She is assured that the destruction she has deserved will come: I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it.”
“Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me. All of them are copper, tin, iron, and lead inside the furnace; they are but the dross of…
“That state, in David's and Solomon's time, had been a head of gold; when the kingdoms were divided it was as the arms of silver.”
The conspiracy of the princes in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing its prey.
“Satan is not divided against himself. The prophets are in conspiracy with the murderers and oppressors, to patronise and protect them in their wickedness, and justify what they did with their false prophecies, provided they may come in sharers with them in the profits of…”
Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives for dishonest gain.
“All their business was to gratify, [1.] Their own pride and ambition, by making themselves arbitrary and formidable. [2.]”
Her prophets whitewash these deeds by false visions and lying divinations, saying, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says,’ when the LORD has not spoken.
“They pretend to be seers, but they see vanity; they pretend to be diviners, but they divine lies; they pretend a warrant from Heaven for what they say, and that it is all as true as gospel; they say, Thus saith the Lord God, but…”
The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy and have exploited the foreign resident without justice.
“The rich oppress the poor, masters their servants, landlords their tenants, and even parents their own children; nay, the buyers and sellers will find some way to oppress one another.”
I searched for a man among them to repair the wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, so that I should not destroy it.
“Note, (1.) Sin makes a gap in the hedge of protection that is about a people at which good things run out from them and evil things pour in upon them, a gap by which God enters to destroy them. (2.)”
The older was named Oholah, and her sister was named Oholibah. They became Mine and gave birth to sons and daughters.
“In this parable Samaria and the kingdom of Israel shall bear the name of Aholah--her own tabernacle, because the places of worship which that kingdom had were of their own devising, their own choosing, and the worship itself was their own invention;”
Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, the Assyrians for whom she lusted.
“We have the story at large 2 Kings xvii. 6 , &c., where the cause of the ruin of that once flourishing kingdom by the Assyrians is shown to be their forsaking the God of Israel, fearing other gods, and walking in the statutes of…”
She too lusted after the Assyrians—governors and commanders, warriors dressed in splendor, horsemen riding on steeds, all desirable young men.
“Thus she increased her whoredoms; she fell in love, fell in league, with the Chaldeans. Hezekiah himself was faulty this way when he was proud of the court which the king of Babylon made to him and complimented his ambassadors with the sight of all…”
When Oholibah openly prostituted herself and exposed her nakedness, I turned away from her in disgust, just as I had turned away from her sister.
“How could the pure and holy God any longer take delight in such a lewd generation? Note, Sin alienates God's mind from the sinner, and justly, for it is the alienation of the sinner's mind from God; but woe, and a thousand woes, to those…”