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
How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the Law of the LORD is with us,’ when in fact the lying pen of the scribes has produced a deception?
“God has indeed made it able to make men wise to salvation, but as to them it is made so in vain, for they are never the wiser for it: The pen of the scribes, of those that first wrote the law and of those…”
The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the LORD, what wisdom do they really have?
“None to any purpose; none that will be found to their praise at the great day, how much soever it is found to their pride now.”
Therefore I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners.
“(2.) They made no conscience of speaking truth, no, not when they spoke as priests and prophets: Every one deals falsely, looks one way and rows another. There is no such thing as sincerity among them. (3.)”
I will take away their harvest, declares the LORD. There will be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the tree, and even the leaf will wither.
“It is expounded in the last clause: The things that I have given them shall pass away from them. Note, God's gifts are upon condition, and revocable upon non-performance of the condition.”
My sorrow is beyond healing; my heart is faint within me. Listen to the cry of the daughter of my people from a land far away: “Is the LORD no…
“Death shall not now be, as it always used to be--the repose of the dead. When Job makes his court to the grave it is in hope of this, that there he shall rest with kings and counsellors of the earth; but now the ashes…”
“The harvest has passed, the summer has ended, but we have not been saved.”
“Note, The salvation of God's church and people often goes on very slowly, and God keeps his people long in the expectation of it, for wise and holy ends.”
For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am crushed. I mourn; horror has gripped me.
“Jeremiah had prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, and, though the truth of his prophecy was questioned, yet he did not rejoice in the proof of the truth of his prophecy was questioned, yet he did not rejoice in the proof of the truth of it…”
Is there no balm in Gilead? Is no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?
“The physician and physic were both ready, but the patient was wilful and irregular, would not be tied to rules, but must be humoured. Note, If sinners die of their wounds, their blood is upon their own heads.”
Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.
“Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted hereafter; but let them expect that while they are here the clouds will still return after the rain.”
If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.
“Now, to justify his willingness to leave them, he shows, 1. What he himself had observed among them. (1.) He would not think of leaving them because they were poor and in distress, but because they were wicked. [1.]”
“They bend their tongues like bows; lies prevail over truth in the land.
“(2.) That which aggravates the sin on this false and lying generation is, [1.] That they are ingenious to sin: They have taught their tongue to speak lies, implying that through the reluctances of natural conscience they found it difficult to bring themselves to it.”
Who is the man wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may explain it?
“What is the matter, that such a change is made with this land? It used to be a land that God cared for, and he had his eyes upon it for good ( Deut. xi.”
Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.
“(1.) That all their comforts at home shall be poisoned and embittered to them: I will feed this people with wormwood (or rather with wolf's-bane, for it signifies a herb that is not wholesome, as wormwood is though it be bitter, but some herb that…”
I will scatter them among the nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”
“And yet, though they are scattered so as that they will not know where to find one another. God will know where to find them all out ( Ps. xxi.”
Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water.
“Let those therefore do it now whose trade it is. Or, rather, it intimates the extreme sottishness and stupidity of the people, that laid not to heart the judgments they were under, nor, even when there was so much blood shed, could find in their…”
Now, O women, hear the word of the LORD. Open your ears to the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters to wail, and one another to lament.
“People shall not need to sympathize with their friends; they shall all have cause enough to mourn for themselves. Note, Those that are themselves affected with the terrors of the Lord should endeavour to affect others with them.”
This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the wealthy man in his riches.
“Ahithophel was befooled, and counsellors are often led away spoiled. But, if a man's policies fail him, yet surely he may gain his point by might and dint of courage.”
But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, who exercises loving devotion, justice and righteousness on the earth—for I…
“We may glory in this, that, wherever we are, we have an acquaintance with an interest in a God that exercises lovingkindness, and judgment, and righteousness in the earth, that is not only just to all his creatures and will do no wrong to any…”
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will punish all who are circumcised yet uncircumcised: Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert…
“Note, The Judge of all the earth is impartial, and none shall fare the better at his bar for any external advantages, but he will render to every man, circumcised or uncircumcised, according to his works.”
Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair of their temples.
“They are heathens in their hearts, strangers to God, and enemies in their minds by wicked works. Their hearts are disposed to idols, as the hearts of the uncircumcised Gentiles are.”
For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut down a tree from the forest; it is shaped with a chisel by the hands of a craftsman.
“The Chaldeans valued themselves upon their wisdom, in which they thought that they excelled all their neighbours; but the prophet here shows that they, and all others that worshipped idols and expected help and relief from them, were brutish and sottish, and had not common…”
There is none like You, O LORD. You are great, and Your name is mighty in power.
“Men's name is often beyond their might; they are thought to be greater than they are; but God's name is great, and no greater than he really is. And therefore who would not fear thee, O King of nations?”
The LORD made the earth by His power; He established the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.
“It was a common saying even among the Greeks-- He that sets up to be another god ought first to make another world. While the heathen worship gods that they made, we worship the God that made us and all things.”
For the shepherds have become senseless; they do not seek the LORD. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.
“But it is sad indeed with a people when their pastors, that should feed them with knowledge and understanding, are themselves thus brutish. Therefore they shall not prosper; none of their attempts for the public safety shall succeed.”
Listen! The sound of a report is coming— a great commotion from the land to the north. The cities of Judah will be made a desolation, a haunt for jackals.
“It now proves too true: A great commotion arises out of the north country, which threatens to make all the cities of Judah desolate and a den of dragons; for they must all expect to be sacrificed to the avarice and fury of the Chaldean…”