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
For this is what the LORD says: “The whole land will be desolate, but I will not finish its destruction.
“It also intimates the unchangeableness of God's covenant, which stands so firmly, that, though he may correct his people severely, yet he will not cast them off, ch. xxx. (4.) Their case was helpless and without remedy. [1.]”
They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing after his neighbor’s wife.
“And that which aggravated their sin was that it was the abuse of God's favours to them: When they were fed to the full, then their lusts grew thus furious. Fulness of bread was fuel to the fire of Sodom's lusts.”
Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?
“Sometimes mercy rejoices against judgment: How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? Here, judgment is reasoning against mercy: Shall I not visit? We are sure that Infinite Wisdom knows how to accommodate the matter between them.”
Therefore this is what the LORD God of Hosts says: “Because you have spoken this word, I will make My words a fire in your mouth and this people the…
“God owns them for his words, though men denied them, and will as surely make them to take effect as the fire consumes combustible material that is in its way. The word shall be fire and the people wood.”
They will devour your harvest and food; they will consume your sons and daughters; they will eat up your flocks and herds; they will feed on your vines and fig…
“But it is a grievous vexation to see it devoured by strangers and enemies, to see their camps victualled with our stores, while those that are dear to us are perishing for want of it: this also is according to the curse of the law…”
To whom can I give this warning? Who will listen to me? Look, their ears are closed, so they cannot hear.
“I cannot find out any that will so much as give me a patient hearing. I may give warning long enough, but these is nobody that will take warning.”
But I am full of the LORD’s wrath; I am tired of holding it back.
“Now see on whom the fury is poured out in full vials-- upon the children abroad, or in the streets, where they are playing ( Zech. viii.”
Therefore this is what the LORD says: “I will lay stumbling blocks before this people; fathers and sons alike will be staggered; friends and neighbors will perish.”
“He will make use of the Chaldeans as instruments of it; for whatever work God has to do he will find out proper instruments for the doing of it. This is a people fetched from the north, from the sides of the earth.”
Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: Correct your ways and deeds, and I will let you live in this place.
“But it is a great instance of the favour of God to them that he gives them liberty to amend, shows them where and how they must amend, and promises to accept them upon their amendment: " I will cause you to dwell quietly and…”
then I will let you live in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.
“They shall enjoy it by covenant, by virtue of the grant made of it to their fathers, not by providence, but by promise.”
But look, you keep trusting in deceptive words to no avail.
“If they knew any thing either of the temple of the Lord or of the Lord of the temple, they must think that to plead that, either in excuse of their sin against God or in arrest of God's judgment against them, was the most…”
Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before Me in…
“Those that think to excuse themselves in unchristian practices with the Christian name, and sin the more boldly and securely because there is a sin-offering provided, do, in effect, make God's house of prayer a den of thieves, as the priests in Christ's time, Matt.”
And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and because I have spoken to you again and again but you would not listen, and I have…
“God spoke, but they heard not, they heeded not, they never minded; he called them, but they answered not; they would not come at his call. Note, What God has spoken to us greatly aggravates what we have done against him.”
As for you, do not pray for these people, do not offer a plea or petition on their behalf, and do not beg Me, for I will not listen to…
“That God's prophets are praying men; Jeremiah foretold the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem, and yet prayed for their preservation, not knowing that the decree was absolute; and it is the will of God that we pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”
As for you, do not pray for these people, do not offer a plea or petition on their behalf, and do not beg Me, for I will not listen to…
“But there was another thing which might stand them in some stead, and which yet they had no value for, and that was the prophet's intercession for them; his prayers would do them more good than their own pleas: now here that support is taken…”
Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
“This intimates both that the sin was evident and could not be denied and that the sinners were impudent and would not be reclaimed; they committed their wickedness even in the prophet's presence and under his eye; he saw what they did, and yet they…”
Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the…
“(2.) There is no extinguishing it: It shall burn and shall not be quenched; prayers and tears shall then avail nothing. When his wrath is kindled but a little, much more when it is kindled to such a degree, there shall be no quenching it.”
For when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but this is what I commanded them…
“He appeals to the original contract, by which they were first formed into a people, when they were brought out of Egypt.”
Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers.
“This had been their way and manner all along; they were of the same stubborn refractory disposition with those that went before them; it had all along been the genius of the nation, and an evil genius it was, that continually haunted them till it…”
They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I never commanded, nor did it…
“Surely it was in a way of righteous judgment, because they had changed the glory of God into the similitude of a beast, that God gave them up to such vile affections that changed them into worse than beasts.”
So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth and the Valley of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
“Nay, it is a piece of divinity, in expectation of what the dead body shall be at the resurrection. The want of it has sometimes been an instance of the rage of men against God's witnesses, Rev. xi.”
They will be exposed to the sun and moon, and to all the host of heaven which they have loved, served, followed, consulted, and worshiped.
“They sought them, consulted them as oracles, appealed to them as judges, implored their favour, and prayed to them as their benefactors. They worshipped them, gave them divine honour, as having a sovereign dominion over them.”
Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return.
“Sin is a great cheat, and they hold it fast; they love it dearly, and resolve to stick to it, and baffle all the methods God takes to separate between them and their sins.”
I have listened and heard; they do not speak what is right. No one repents of his wickedness, asking, ‘What have I done?’
“(2.) They were so far from repenting of their sins that they went on resolutely in their sins: Every one turned to his course, his wicked course, that course of sin which he had chosen and accustomed himself to, as the horse rushes into the…”
Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons. The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush keep their time of migration, but My people do not know the requirements…
“It is an instance of their sottishness that, though they are God's people, and therefore should readily understand his mind upon every intimation of it, yet they know not the judgment of the Lord; they apprehend not the meaning either of a mercy or an…”