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
They scoff at kings and make rulers an object of scorn. They laugh at every fortress and build up siege ramps to seize it.
“Alas! they will make nothing of them. They shall scoff (he shall, so it is in the original, meaning Nebuchadnezzar, who being puffed up with his successes, shall scoff) at the kings and commanders of the forces that think to make head against him; and…”
The foe pulls all of them up with a hook; he catches them in his dragnet, and gathers them in his fishing net; so he rejoices gladly.
“Note, There is a proneness in us to take the glory of our outward prosperity to ourselves, and to say, My might, and the power of my hands, have gotten me this wealth, Deut. viii.”
Will he, therefore, empty his net and continue to slay nations without mercy?
“Must the numbers and wealth of nations be sacrificed to their net? As if it were a small thing to rob men of their estates, shall they rob God of his glory?”
Then the LORD answered me: “Write down this vision and clearly inscribe it on tablets, so that a herald may run with it.
“He must write it, that he might imprint it on his own mind, and make it more clear to himself, but especially that it might be notified to those in distant places and transmitted to those in future ages.”
Look at the proud one; his soul is not upright—but the righteous will live by faith—
“This is quoted in the New Testament ( Rom. i. 38 ), for the proof of the great doctrine of justification by faith only and of the influence which the grace of faith has upon the Christian life.”
and wealth indeed betrays him. He is an arrogant man never at rest. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and like Death, he is never satisfied.
“Drunkenness is itself a transgression, and is the cause of abundance of transgression. We read of those that err through wine, Isa. xxviii.”
Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by iniquity!
“So Nebuchadnezzar did ( Dan. iv. 30 ): Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom?”
Is it not indeed from the LORD of Hosts that the labor of the people only feeds the fire, and the nations weary themselves in vain?
“The worst that can be said of the labourers in God's vineyards is that they have borne the burden and heat of the day ( Matt. xx.”
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
“Such is the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ given by the gospel ( 2 Cor. iv. 6 ), and such was the knowledge of his glory by the miraculous ruin of Babylon.”
But the LORD is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him.
“(2.) The multitude of their gods which they set up, and take so much pains to support, cannot thrust out our God; he is, and will be, in his holy temple still, and glorious in holiness.”
He stood and measured the earth; He looked and startled the nations; the ancient mountains crumbled; the perpetual hills collapsed. His ways are everlasting.
“To this he adds, His ways are everlasting, that is, all the motions of his providence are according to his eternal counsels; and he is the same for ever, that which he was yesterday and to-day.”
You went forth for the salvation of Your people, to save Your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked and stripped him from head to toe.
“It is for salvation with thy anointed, with Joshua, who led the armies of Israel and was a figure of him whose name he bore, even Jesus our Joshua.”
yet I will exult in the LORD; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!
“This is the principal ground of our joy in God, that he is the God of our salvation, our eternal salvation, the salvation of the soul; and, if he be so, we may rejoice in him as such in our greatest distresses, since by them…”
GOD the Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like those of a deer; He makes me walk upon the heights! For the choirmaster. With stringed instruments.
“Thus the prophet, who began his prayer with fear and trembling, concludes it with joy and triumph, for prayer is heart's ease to a gracious soul. When Hannah had prayed she went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.”