The Voices
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.
Short bio
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.
Notable works
2 listed
| Title | Year | Description |
|---|---|---|
| An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments | 1710 | — |
| Directions for Daily Communion with God | 1712 | — |
Where to find them
Their words on MannaFest
14,170 quotes across 66 books
Where this voice speaks on the site — each quote links to the verse it was chosen for.
“Riches are not the honours of the soul, are not peculiar to the best men, nor sure to us; and therefore let not the rich man glory in his riches, Jam. i. Fifthly, It is folly to think that growing rich in a sinful way makes us innocent, or will make us safe, o…”
“Man, who is formed out of the earth, is fed out of the earth; so that nation, that was formed by prophecy, by prophecy was fed and taught; beginning at Moses, and so going on to all the prophets through the several ages of that church, we find that divine reve…”
“Is there iniquity in Gilead? Yea, (2.) And in Gilgal too; there they sacrifice bullocks ( ch. ix. 15 ), and there their altars which they have set up, either to strange gods in opposition to his own appointed altar, are as thick as heaps of manure in the furro…”
“The ensign of his authority was not a royal sceptre, but the rod of God; with that he summoned both Egypt's plagues and Israel's blessings. Moses, as a prophet, was a type of Christ ( Acts iii. 22 ), and it is by Christ as a prophet that we are brought out of …”
“But as for Ephraim he soon lost himself: When he offended in Baal he died, that is, he lost his reputation, his honour soon dwindled and sunk, and was laid in the dust. Baal is here put for all idolatry; when Ephraim forsook God, and took to worship images, th…”
“When once he began to offend in Baal the ice was broken, and he grew worse and worse, coveted more idols, doted more upon those he had, and grew more ridiculous in the worship of them. Note, The way of idolatry, as of other sins, is down-hill, and men cannot e…”
“They promise themselves a great deal of safety and satisfaction in the worship of their idols, and that their prosperity will thereby be established; but God tells them that they shall be disappointed, and driven away in their wickedness. This is illustrated b…”
“He gave them a law forbidding them to worship any other: " Thou shalt know no God but me; not only shalt not own and worship any other, but shalt not acquaint thyself with any other, nor make the rites and usages of the Gentiles familiar to thee." Note, It is …”
“6 , and say, The God that knew them, and owned them, and fed them there, was a friend indeed, for he was a friend at need and an all-sufficient friend, that could victual so vast an army when all ordinary ways of provision were cut off, and where, if miracles …”
“That the judgments of God, when they come with commission against impenitent sinners, will be irresistible and very terrible. They will rend the caul of the heart, will fill the soul with confusion, and tear that in pieces; and we are as unable to grapple with…”
“And this was no hopeful presage; it would have looked better, and promised better, if they had been more modest and moderate in the use of their plenty, and had learned to deny themselves; but what was the effect of it? They were filled, and their heart was ex…”
“4 Yet I am the L ORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me. Idolatry was the sin that did most easily beset the Jewish nation till after the captivity; the ten tribes from the first were guilty of …”
“All the blame of Israel's ruin laid upon themselves: O Israel! thy perdition is thence; it is of and from thyself; or, " It has destroyed thee, O Israel! that is, all that sin and folly of thine which thou art before charged with. As thy own wickedness has man…”
“Where are thy judges, who by administering public justice should preserve the public peace? For it is righteousness and peace that kiss each other. Where are thy judges that thou hadst such a desire of and such a dependence upon, of whom thou saidst, Give me a…”
“The business and care of a good king is to keep his people, not only from ruined by foreign enemies, but from ruining themselves and one another. Thus will God yet be Israel's King, as he was their King of old. Note, Our case would be sad indeed if God were no…”
“Those among them that yet retain a respect for their God are here encouraged to hope that he will yet appear for their relief, though their kings and princes, and all their other supports and succours, fail them,”
“It is laid up in safety, and will not be forgotten, nor the evidence against him lost; but it is laid up in secret; it is hid; the sinner himself is not aware of it. It is bound up in God's omniscience, in the sinner's own conscience. Note, The sin of sinners …”
“Those are in danger of miscarrying in conversion who delay it, and will not put forth themselves to speed the work and bring it to an issue. Therefore they are destroyed because they have done that which will be their certain ruin and neglected that which woul…”
“He is fruitful in respect of the plentiful products of his country and the great numbers of its inhabitants; it was both a rich and a populous tribe, as was foretold concerning it; but sin turns this fruitful tribe into barrenness. Joseph was a fruitful bough,…”
“Note, Our prayers for pardon and acceptance with God should be always accompanied with sincere purposes and vows of new obedience. Two things they are to promise and vow:-- (1.) Thanksgiving. "Pardon our sins, and accept of us, so will we render the calves of …”
“(2.) See the benefit of sanctified afflictions. Ephraim had smarted for his idolatry; it had brought one judgment after another upon him, and this at length is the fruit, even the taking away of his sin, Isa. xxvii. (3.) See the nature of repentance; it is a f…”
“Those souls, those Israelites, to whom God is as the dew, on whom his grace distils, (1.) Shall be growing. The bad being by the grace of God made good, they shall by the same grace be made better; for grace, wherever it is true, is growing. [1.] They shall gr…”
“God smells a sweet savour from their spiritual sacrifices ( Gen. viii. 21 ), and they are accepted of the multitude of the brethren. Grace is the perfume of the soul, the perfume of the name, makes it like a precious ointment, Eccl. vii.”
“That which was ordained to life becomes through their abuse of it, death to them. God's providences, being not duly improved by them, harden them in sin and contribute to their ruin. God's discovery of himself both in the judgments of his mouth and in the judg…”