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
He will not grow weak or discouraged before He has established justice on the earth. In His law the islands will put their hope.”
“He sets judgment in the earth. He erects his government in the world, a church for himself among men, reforms the world, and by the power of his gospel and grace fixes such principles in the minds of men as tend to make them wise…”
This is what God the LORD says—He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the people on…
“Now this is prefixed to God's covenant with the Messiah, and the commission given him, not only to show that he has authority to make such a covenant and give such a commission, and had power sufficient to bear him out, but that the design…”
“I, the LORD, have called you for a righteous purpose, and I will take hold of your hand.
“There shall be churches set up in Gentile nations and they shall sing a new song. The conversion of the Gentiles is often foretold under this notion, as appears, Rom. xv.”
“I, the LORD, have called you for a righteous purpose, and I will take hold of your hand.
“Note, Those whom God calls he will own and help, and will hold their hands. The great intentions of this commission speak abundance of comfort to the children of men.”
The LORD goes forth like a mighty one; He stirs up His zeal like a warrior.
“The going forth of the gospel is thus represented, Rev. vi. Christ, in it, went forth conquering and to conquer. The ministry of the apostles is called their warfare; and they were the soldiers of Jesus Christ.”
I will lead the blind by a way they did not know; I will guide them on unfamiliar paths.
“Those who by nature were blind, and those who, being under convictions of sin and wrath are quite at a loss and know not what to do with themselves, God will lead by a way that they knew not, will show them the way to…”
But those who trust in idols and say to molten images, ‘You are our gods!’ will be turned back in utter shame.
“The Babylonians shall when they see how the Jews, who despise their images, are owned and delivered by the God they worship without images, and the Gentiles when they see how idolatry falls before the preaching of the gospel, is scattered like darkness before the…”
Listen, you deaf ones; look, you blind ones, that you may see!
“This call to the deaf to hear and the blind to see is like the command given to the man that had the withered hand to stretch it forth; though he could not do this, because it was withered, yet, if he had not attempted…”
Who is blind but My servant, or deaf like the messenger I am sending? Who is blind like My covenant partner, or blind like the servant of the LORD?
“The verse before may be understood as spoken to the Gentile idolaters, whom he calls deaf and blind, because they worshipped gods that were so.”
Who among you will pay attention to this? Who will listen and obey hereafter?
“If one method not take effect, another may, and sinners shall be left inexcusable. Observe, (1.) We may all of us, if we will, hear the voice of God, and we are called and invited to hear it. (2.)”
So He poured out on them His furious anger and the fierceness of battle.
“The fire of God's wrath kindled upon him, and he knew it not, was not aware of it, took no notice of the judgments, at least not of the hand of God in them.”
Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east and gather you from the west.
“And if this was reckoned so great a thing, to give Egypt for their ransom, what reason have we to admire God's love to us in giving his own Son to be a ransom for us!”
Bring out a people who have eyes but are blind, and who have ears but are deaf. All the nations gather together and the peoples assemble.
“Their gods have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, and those that make them and trust in them are like unto them; so David had said ( Ps. cxv.”
The people I formed for Myself will declare My praise.
“He that is the first cause is the highest end both of the first and of the new creation.”
But you have not called on Me, O Jacob, because you have grown weary of Me, O Israel.
“God's goodness takes occasion from man's badness to appear so much the more illustrious. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound ( Rom. v. 20 ), and mercy rejoices against judgment, as having prevailed and carried the day, Jam. ii.”
But you have not called on Me, O Jacob, because you have grown weary of Me, O Israel.
“For, (1.) They had cast off prayer: Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob! Jacob was a man famous for prayer ( Hosea xii.”
Your first father sinned, and your spokesmen rebelled against Me.
“That they were children of disobedience; for their first father (that is, their forefathers) had sinned; and they had not only sinned in their loins, but sinned like them.”
Thus says the LORD, the King and Redeemer of Israel, the LORD of Hosts: “I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God but Me.
“He is the Lord, Jehovah, self-existent and self-sufficient; and he is the Lord of hosts, of all the hosts of heaven and earth, of angels and men. That he stands in relation to, and has a particular concern for, his church.”
Who then is like Me? Let him say so! Let him declare his case before Me, since I established an ancient people.
“To cure them of their inclination to idolatry, which was the sin that did most easily beset them and to reform them from which they were sent into Babylon.”
The blacksmith takes a tool and labors over the coals; he fashions an idol with hammers and forges it with his strong arms.
“Perhaps it was a piece of superstition among them for the workman not to eat or drink while he was making a god.”
The woodworker extends a measuring line; he marks it out with a stylus; he shapes it with chisels and outlines it with a compass.
“The form in which it is made is that of a man, a poor, weak, dying creature; but it is the noblest form and figure that he is acquainted with, and, being his own, he has a peculiar fondness for it and is willing to…”
He cuts down cedars or retrieves a cypress or oak. He lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest.
“Or, as some read it, which hath strengthened or lifted up itself among the trees of the forest, the tallest and strongest he can pick out.”
From the rest he makes a god, his graven image. He bows down to it and worships; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god.”
“Qui fingit sacros, auro vel marmore, vultus Non facit ille deos; qui rogat, ille facit. He who supplicates the figure, whether it be of gold or of marble, makes it a god, and not he who merely constructs it.--M ARTIAL.”
Remember these things, O Jacob, for you are My servant, O Israel. I have made you, and you are My servant; O Israel, I will never forget you.
“Two great truths are abundantly made out in these verses:-- I. That the people of God are a happy people, especially upon account of the covenant that is between them and God. The people of Israel were so as a figure of the gospel Israel.”
Remember these things, O Jacob, for you are My servant, O Israel. I have made you, and you are My servant; O Israel, I will never forget you.
“He will deliver them out of captivity; for, (1.) They are his servants, and therefore he has a just quarrel with those that detain them. Let my people go, that they may serve me. The servants of the King of kings are under special protection.”