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 send a plague against her and shed blood in her streets; the slain will fall within her, while the sword is against her on every side.
“It is God that judges, and he will overcome. Nor is it Tyre and Zidon only on which God would execute judgments, but on all those that despised his people Israel, and triumphed in their calamities; for this was now God's controversy with the nations…”
And there they will dwell securely, build houses, and plant vineyards. They will dwell securely when I execute judgments against all those around them who treat them with contempt.
“God had been dishonoured by the sins of his people, and their sufferings too had given occasion to the enemy to blaspheme ( Isa. lii.”
“Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt and prophesy against him and against all Egypt.
“But this begins with the prince, because it began to have its accomplishment in the insurrections and rebellions of the people against the prince, not long after this.”
I will restore Egypt from captivity and bring them back to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin. There they will be a lowly kingdom.
“Some date the forty years from Nebuchadnezzar's destroying Egypt, others from the desolation of Egypt some time before; however, they end about the first year of Cyrus, when the seventy years' captivity of Judah ended, or soon after. Then this prediction was accomplished, 1.”
Egypt will never again be an object of trust for the house of Israel, but will remind them of their iniquity in turning to the Egyptians.
“The prophecy which begins here, it should seem, is continued to the twentieth verse of the next chapter. And Dr.”
“Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to labor strenuously against Tyre. Every head was made bald and every shoulder made raw.
“In prosecuting this siege every head was made bald, and every shoulder peeled, with carrying burdens and labouring in the water when they had a strong tide and a strong town to contend with.”
I have given him the land of Egypt as the reward for his labor, because it was done for Me, declares the Lord GOD.
“Verily they have their reward. The conquest of Egypt is spoken of as Nebuchadnezzar's full reward, for that completed his dominion over the then known world in a manner; that was the last of the kingdoms he subdued; when he was master of that he…”
In that day I will cause a horn to sprout for the house of Israel, and I will open your mouth to speak among them.
“The day of their deliverance shall begin to dawn, and they shall have some little reviving in their bondage, in the honour that shall be done, 1.”
Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, prophesy and declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: Wail, ‘Alas for that day!’
“A repetition of a former prophecy against Egypt, just before the desolation of it begun by their own bad conduct, which gradually weakened them and prepared the way for the king of Babylon,”
A sword will come against Egypt, and there will be anguish in Cush when the slain fall in Egypt, its wealth is taken away, and its foundations are torn down.
“When the slain fall so thickly in Egypt great pain shall be in Ethiopia, both that in Africa, which is in the neighbourhood of Egypt on one side, and that in Asia, which is near to it on the other side.”
For this is what the LORD says: The allies of Egypt will fall, and her proud strength will collapse.
“The power of the king of Egypt was his pride; but that shall be broken, and humbled. Is the multitude of her people her support?”
He and his people with him, the most ruthless of the nations, will be brought in to destroy the land.
“(3.) That they are the wicked, who will not be restrained by reason and conscience, the laws of nature or the laws of nations, for they are without law: I will sell the land into the hand of the wicked.”
So I will execute judgment on Egypt, and they will know that I am the LORD.”
“The destruction of Egypt is the executing of judgments, which intimates not only that it is done justly, for its sins, but that it is done regularly and legally, by a judicial sentence. All the executions God does are according to his judgments.”
“Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt. See, it has not been bound up for healing, or splinted for strength to hold the sword.
“It was soon after the king of Egypt slew good king Josiah, and in the same reign, that its arm was thus broken, and it received that fatal blow which it never recovered. Before Egypt's heart and neck were broken its arm was.”
I will strengthen the arms of Babylon’s king and place My sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, who will groan before him like a…
“Put strength into the king of Babylon's arms, that he may be able to go through the service he is designed for.”
I will strengthen the arms of Babylon’s king and place My sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, who will groan before him like a…
“(1.) The king of Egypt shall be dispirited when he finds himself in danger of the king of Babylon's forces: he shall groan before him with the groaning of a deadly wounded man.”
All the birds of the air nested in its branches, and all the beasts of the field gave birth beneath its boughs; all the great nations lived in its shade.
“Even the bramble, if he be anointed king, invites the trees to come and trust in his shadow, Judg. ix.”
I made it beautiful with its many branches, the envy of all the trees of Eden, which were in the garden of God.’
“(2.) He seemed to have a good bottom. This cedar was not like the heath in the desert, made to inhabit the parched places ( Jer. xvii. 6 ); it was not a root in a dry ground, Isa. liii.”
Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Since it became great in height and set its top among the clouds, and it grew proud on account of its height,
“There were other sins in which the Egyptians and the Assyrians did concur, particularly that of oppressing God's people, which is charged upon them both together ( Isa. lii.”
I delivered it into the hand of the ruler of the nations, for him to deal with it according to its wickedness. I have banished it.
“He must leave the king of Egypt to apply all this to himself, to see his own face in the looking-glass of the king of Assyria's sin, and to foresee his own fall through the perspective glass of his ruin,”
This happened so that no other trees by the waters would become great in height and set their tops among the clouds, and no other well-watered trees would reach them…
“Note, The fall of proud presumptuous men is intended for warning to others to keep humble. It would have been well for Nebuchadnezzar, who was himself active in bringing down the Assyrian, if he had taken the admonition.”
This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘On the day it was brought down to Sheol, I caused mourning.
“I restrained the floods, and the great waters were stayed, that they might run into another channel, that of lamentation. Lebanon particularly, the kingdom of Syria, that was sometimes in confederacy with the Assyrian, mourned for him; as the allies of Babylon, Rev. xviii.”
I will drench the land with the flow of your blood, all the way to the mountains—the ravines will be filled.
“It shall reach to the mountains, and the waters of Egypt shall again be turned into blood by this means: The rivers shall be full of thee.”
This is the lament they will chant for her; the daughters of the nations will chant it.
“This prophecy concludes and completes the burden of Egypt, and leaves it and all its multitude in the pit of destruction.”
“Son of man, wail for the multitudes of Egypt, and consign her and the daughters of the mighty nations to the depths of the earth with those who descend to…
“When Egypt is slain, let her have an honourable funeral, befitting her quality; let her be buried with the daughters of the famous nations, in their burying-places and with the same ceremony.”