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.
“It was written in the counsels of God, and written in the prophecies of the Old Testament, not one jot or tittle of either of which can fall to the ground. They were pleasing themselves with the society one of another, but Christ casts a damp upon the joy of t…”
“Apply the doctrine of Christ crucified to yourselves, and let it be meat and drink to your souls, strengthening, nourishing, and refreshing, to you, and the support and comfort of your spiritual life.”
“The death Christ died was a bloody death, and frequent mention is made of the blood, the precious blood, as the pride of our redemption; for the blood is the life, and made atonement for the soul, Lev. xvii.”
“Though Christ was in the midst of his enemies, yet he did not, for fear of them, omit this sweet duty of singing psalms. Paul and Silas sang, when the prisoners heard them. This was an evangelical song, and gospel times are often spoken of in the Old Testament…”
“Nor should we be discouraged from coming to the Lord's supper, by the fear of relapsing into sin afterward; but, the greater of our danger is, the more need we have to fortify ourselves by the diligent conscientious use of holy ordinances. Christ tells them th…”
“Was Christ in such an agony for our sins, and shall we never be in an agony about them? How should we look upon him whom we have pressed, whom we have pierced, and mourn, and be in bitterness! It becomes us to be exceeding sorrowful for sin, because Christ was…”
“He fell on the ground, and prayed. It was but a little before this, that in prayer he lifted up his eyes ( John xvii. 1 ); but here, being in an agony, he fell upon his face, accommodating himself to his present humiliation, and teaching us thus to abase ourse…”
“As Mediator, he acquiesced in the will of God concerning them; " Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt. I know the matter is settled, and cannot be altered, I must suffer and die, and I bid it welcome." VII. He roused his disciples, who were droppe…”
“Though the answers to our prayers do not come quickly, yet we must renew our requests, and continue instant in prayer; for the vision is for an appointed time, and at the end it shall speak, and not lie, Hab. ii. Paul, when he was buffeted by a messenger of Sa…”
“"Now the hour is come, in which I knew you would all forsake me, even take your course;" as he said to Judas, What thou doest, do quickly. The Son of man is now betrayed into the hands of sinners, the chief priests and elders; those worst of sinners, because t…”
“Some friends he had, even in and about Jerusalem, that loved him, and never thought they could do enough for him, among whom, though Israel be not gathered, he is, and will be, glorious. Here was one friend, that was so kind as to invite him to sup with him; a…”
“Note, As Christ spoke to admiration, so he kept silence to admiration. The proposal Pilate made to the people, to have Jesus released to them, since it was the custom of the feast to grace the solemnity with the release of one prisoner.”
“The destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans is said to be for the iniquity of the priests that shed the blood of the just, Lam. iv. Note, Wicked priests are generally the worst of men. The better any thing is, the worse it is when it is corrupted.”
“It was easy to see, comparing the eagerness of the prosecutors with the slenderness of the proofs, that it was not his guilt, but his goodness, not any thing mischievous or scandalous, but something meritorious and glorious, that they were provoked at.”
“Though he was not so weak as to be governed by their opinion, to believe him guilty, yet he was so wicked as to be swayed by their outrage, to condemn him, though he believed him innocent; induced thereunto by reasons of state, and the wisdom of the world. Our…”
“A bloody death, and without blood no remission, Heb. ix. The blood is the life ( Gen. ix. 4 ); it is the vehicle of the animal spirits, which connect the soul and body, so that the exhausting of the blood is the exhausting of the life.”
“He was brought before Pilate about the sixth hour ( John xix. 14 ), according to the Roman way of reckoning, which John uses, with which ours at this day agrees, that is at six o'clock in the morning; and then, at the third hour, according to the Jews' way of …”
“Christ crucified is king of his church, his spiritual Israel; and even then when he hung on the cross, he was like a king, conquering his and his people's enemies, and triumphing over them, Col. ii. Now he was writing his laws in his own blood, and preparing h…”
“Now, in the midst of such our Lord Jesus was crucified; while he lived he had, and there was occasion, associated with sinners, to do them good; and now when he died, he was for the same purpose joined with them, for he came into the world, and went out of it,…”
“In that famous prediction of Christ's sufferings ( Isa. liii. 12 ), it was foretold that he should be numbered with the transgressors, because he was made sin for us. The spectators, that is, the generality of them, instead of condoling with him in his misery,…”
“When secure sinners think the danger is over, it is then most ready to seize them: the day of the Lord comes as a thief upon those that deny his coming, and say, Where is the promise of it? much more upon those that defy his coming, and say, Let him make speed…”
“Now the scripture was fulfilled ( Amos viii. 9 ), I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day; and Jer. xv. 9 , Her sun is gone down while it is yet day.”
“Thus did they represent him as praying to saints, either because he had abandoned God, or God had abandoned him; and hereby they would make him more and more odious to the people. One of them filled a sponge with vinegar, and reached it up to him upon a reed; …”
“This was intended for a further affront and abuse to him; and whoever it was that checked him who did it, did but add to the reproach; " Let him alone; he has called for Elias: let us see whether Elias will come take him down; and if not, we may conclude that …”
“Christ was really and truly dead, for he gave up the ghost; his human soul departed to the world of spirits, and left his body a breathless clod of clay. Just at that instant that Christ died upon mount Calvary, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from th…”