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 You granted Him authority over all people, so that He may give eternal life to all those You have given Him.
“Note, Christ's dominion over the children of men is in order to the salvation of the children of God. All things are for their sakes, 2 Cor. iv.”
Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.
“We are therefore concerned to know Christ as our Redeemer, by whom alone we can now have access to God; it is life eternal to believe in Christ; and this he has undertaken to give to as many as were given him.”
I have glorified You on earth by accomplishing the work You gave Me to do.
“The word signifies his performing every part of his undertaking in the most complete and perfect manner. Herein he glorified his Father; he pleased him, he praised him.”
Now they know that everything You have given Me comes from You.
“"They are of thee, their being is of thee as the God of nature, their well-being is of thee as the God of grace; they are all of thee, and therefore, Father, I bring them all to thee, that they may be all for thee."”
For I have given them the words You gave Me, and they have received them.
“Christ is a Master that delights in the proficiency of his scholars. He accepts the sincerity of their faith, and graciously passes by the infirmity of it.”
For I have given them the words You gave Me, and they have received them.
“The word was to them an ingrafted word. [2.] " They have kept thy word, have continued in it; they have conformed to it." Christ's commandment is then only kept when it is obeyed.”
I ask on their behalf. I do not ask on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those You have given Me; for they are Yours.
“The consigning of the elect to Christ was so far from making them less the Father's that it was in order to making them the more so. Note, [1.]”
Righteous Father, although the world has not known You, I know You, and they know that You sent Me.
“He prayed for himself first. Though Christ, as God, was prayed to, Christ, as man, prayed; thus it became him to fulfill all righteousness. It was said to him, as it is said to us, Ask, and I will give thee, Ps. ii.”
After Jesus had spoken these words, He went out with His disciples across the Kidron Valley, where they entered a garden.
“That he entered into a garden. This circumstance is taken notice of only by this evangelist, that Christ's sufferings began in a garden.”
So Judas brought a band of soldiers and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees. They arrived at the garden carrying lanterns, torches, and weapons.
“The persons employed in this action-- a band of men and officers from the chief priests, with Judas. (1.)”
“Jesus of Nazareth,” they answered. Jesus said, “I am He.” And Judas His betrayer was standing there with them.
“I am he, Ego eimi -- I am he, is the glorious name of the blessed God ( Exod. iii. 14 ), and the honour of that name is justly challenged by the blessed Jesus. [4.]”
This was to fulfill the word He had spoken: “I have not lost one of those You have given Me.”
“Though Christ's keeping them was meant especially of the preservation of their souls from sin and apostasy, yet it is here applied to the preservation of their natural lives, and very fitly, for even the body was a part of Christ's charge and care; he…”
Then Simon Peter drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.
“The servant's name, for the greater certainty of the narrative, is recorded; it was Malchus, or Malluch, Neh. x. (1.) We must here acknowledge Peter's good-will; he had an honest zeal for his Master, though now misguided.”
“Put your sword back in its sheath!” Jesus said to Peter. “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given Me?”
“Of all that was amiss in what Peter did, he seems to resent nothing so much as that he would have hindered his sufferings now that his hour was come: "What, Peter, wilt thou step in between the cup and the lip?”
They brought Him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year.
“God was overturning them all, that he might come whose right it was. Caiaphas was high priest that same year when Messiah was to be cut off, which intimates, (1.)”
They brought Him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year.
“Dr. Lightfoot thinks Annas was not present, because he had to attend early that morning in the temple, to examine the sacrifices which were that day to be offered, whether they were without blemish; if so, there was a significancy in it, that Christ, the…”
Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it would be better if one man died for the people.
“Thus the enemies of Christ's gospel are resolved, true or false, to run it down. (3.) It is a testimony to the innocency of our Lord Jesus, from the mouth of one of his worst enemies, who owned that he fell a sacrifice to the…”
At this, the servant girl watching the door said to Peter, “Aren’t you also one of this man’s disciples?” “I am not,” he answered.
“Suppose the servants had ridiculed him, and insulted over him, upon it, those can bear but little for Christ that cannot bear this; this is but running with the footmen. (2.) How speedy the surrender was.”
Then Pilate took Jesus and had Him flogged.
“Pilate, seeing the people so outrageous, and being disappointed in his project of releasing him upon the people's choice, took Jesus, and scourged him, that is, appointed the lictors that attended him to do it.”
As soon as the chief priests and officers saw Him, they shouted, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
“Now by this it appears that their malice against Christ was, (1.) Unreasonable and most absurd, in that they offer not to make good their charges against him, nor to object against the judgment of Pilate concerning him; but, though he be innocent, he must…”
“We have a law,” answered the Jews, “and according to that law He must die, because He declared Himself to be the Son of God.”
“Whoever falsely pretended to be the Son of God was guilty of blasphemy, Lev. xxiv. But then, [2.]”
and he went back into the Praetorium. “Where are You from?” he asked. But Jesus gave no answer.
“Observe, (1.) The place he chose for this examination: He went into the judgment-hall for privacy, that he might be out of the noise and clamour of the crowd, and might examine the thing the more closely.”
So Pilate said to Him, “Do You refuse to speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You and authority to crucify You?”
“Men in power are apt to be puffed up with their power, and the more absolute and arbitrary it is the more it gratifies and humours their pride.”
Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me if it were not given to you from above.
“In this outcry they sought two things:-- (1.) To blacken the prisoner as an enemy to Cæsar.”
Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me if it were not given to you from above.
“He that delivered Christ to Pilate was either, 1. The people of the Jews, who cried out, Crucify him, crucify him.”