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.
“When the churches have rest they shall be edified, and confirmed, and comforted, and shall resolve to be as firm to their God as other nations are to theirs, though they be no gods. Where we find the foregoing promises, Isa. ii.”
“This was done by Cyrus, who acted therein as God's servant; and that deliverance was typical of our redemption by Jesus Christ, and the release from our spiritual bondage which is proclaimed in the everlasting gospel, that acceptable year of the Lord, in which…”
“They promise themselves a day of it, but it shall prove God's day. They are gathered against Zion, to destroy it, but it shall prove to their own destruction, which Israel and Israel's God shall have the glory of. [1.] Their coming together against Zion shall …”
“A promise of the Messiah, and of his kingdom, to support the people of God in the day of these troubles. Of the birth of the Messiah,”
“This was the scripture which the scribes went upon when with the greatest assurance they told Herod where Christ should be born ( Matt. ii. 6 ), and hence it was universally known among the Jews that Christ should come out of the town of Bethlehem where David …”
“Though the out-goings of the Messiah were from everlasting, yet the redemption in Jerusalem, the consolation of Israel, must be waited for ( Luke ii. 25-38 ) until the time that she who should bring forth (so the virgin Mary is called, as Christ is himself cal…”
“His church shall abide, and he in it, and with it, always, even to the end of the world. [2.] It shall be very glorious to himself: Now shall he be great to the ends of the earth. Now that he stands and feeds his flock, now shall he be great. For Christ reckon…”
“Note, Those that threaten ruin to the church of God hasten ruin to themselves; and their destruction is the church's salvation: Thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian. When Satan fell as lightning from heaven before the preaching of the gospel, and Christ'…”
“They shall live in a continual dependence upon God, and be still deriving from him, as the dew, which tarries not for man, not waits for the sons of men; they shall not rely upon human aids and powers, but on divine grace, for they are, and own that they are, …”
“It was the sin of Israel that they furnished themselves extravagantly with horses and chariots, and were soothsayers and idolaters; see Isa. ii. But here it is promised that they shall not regard them any more. The tranquillity of the kingdom of Christ is inte…”
“They are here directed, and we in them, to look a great way back in their reviews of the divine favour; let them remember their former days, their first days, when they were formed into a people, and the great things God did for them, [1.] When he brought them…”
“Note, When we are calling to mind God's former mercies to us we must not forget the mercy of good teachers and governors when we were young; let those be made mention of, to the glory of God, who went before us, saying, This is the way, walk in it; it was God …”
“Here is the proposal for accommodation between God and Israel, the parties that were at variance in the beginning of the chapter. Upon the trial, judgment is given against Israel; they are convicted of injustice and ingratitude towards God, the crimes with whi…”
“The work of ministers is to explain the providences of God and to quicken and direct men to learn the lessons that are taught by them. What is the ground of the action, and what are the things that are laid to their charge. They are charged with injustice, a s…”
“All the proposals of peace but those that are according to the gospel are absurd. One stream of the blood of Christ is worth ten thousand rivers of oil. (2.) Some of them are wicked things, as to give our first-born and the fruit of our body to death, which wo…”
“Though the worship of idols is enacted by the statutes of Omri, recommended by the practice of the house of Ahab, and pleads that it has been the usage of many generations, yet it is still displeasing to God and destructive to Israel; for no laws nor customs a…”
“(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. 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.”
“Note, The voice of the prophets is the Lord's voice, and that cries to the city, cries to the country. When the sin of a city cries to God his voice cries against the city; and, when the judgments of God are coming upon a city, his voice first cries unto it. H…”
“(4.) Those that had wealth and power in their hands abused it to oppression and extortion; The rich men thereof are full of violence; for those that have much would have more, and are in a capacity of making it more by the power which their abundance of wealth…”
“No; this is a sin which will by no means consist with a profession of purity. Those that are dishonest in their dealings have not the spots of God's children, and shall never be reckoned pure, whatever shows of devotion they may make.”
“Note, What we hold closest we commonly lose soonest, and that proves least safe which is most dear. (4.) What they save for a time shall be reserved for a future and sorer stroke: That which thou deliverest out of the hand of one enemy will I give up to the sw…”
“Thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with oil, having no heart to make use of ornaments and refreshments when all is going to ruin.”
“If Israel, God's own professing people, provoke him by sin, he will let them know that he has a controversy with them; he sees sin in them, and is displeased with it, nay, their sins are more displeasing to him than the sins of others, as they are a greater gr…”
“And, if we depend on God as the God of our salvation, we must wait for him, and for his salvation, in his own way and his own time. Let us now see what the church is here taught to expect and promise herself from God, even when things are brought to the last e…”
“The good man is a godly man and a merciful man; the word signifies both. Those are completely good men that are devout towards God and compassionate and beneficent towards men, that love mercy and walk with God.”