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.
“8 I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest. In these verses we have, I. Prayer is a salve for every sore and a relief to the spirit under every burden: Give ear to my prayer, O God!”
“He prays that he might find mercy with God, for with men he could find no mercy. When he fled from the cruel hands of Saul he fell into the cruel hands of the Philistines. "Lord" (says he), "be thou merciful to me now, or I am undone." The mercy of God is what…”
“He confides in God, being assured that he took his part, comforting himself with this, that therefore he was safe and should be victorious, and that while he lived he should praise God,”
“Man would swallow him up, those of his own kind, from whom he might have expected humanity. The ravenous beasts prey not upon those of their own species; yet a bad man would devour a good man if he could. "They are men, weak and frail; make them to know that t…”
“How pleasantly may a good Christian, in singing this psalm, rejoice in God, and praise him for what he will do, as well as for what he has done. Prayer for Help under Oppression;”
“Such as this is the enmity of Satan and his agents against the kingdom of Christ and the interests of his holy religion, which if we cordially espouse, we must not think it strange to meet with such treatment as this, as though some strange thing happened to u…”
“They made it their whole business to ruin David; all their thoughts were against him for evil, which put evil interpretations upon all his words. That they were very restless and unwearied. They continually waited for his soul; it was the life, the precious li…”
“They hope to escape God's judgments, as they escape men's, by violence and fraud, and the arts of injustice and treachery; but shall they escape? No, certainly they shall not. The sin of sinners will never be their security, nor will either their impudence or …”
“Of all the impressions thus made upon his spirit. When he was wandering he was often weeping, and therefore prays, " Put thou my tears into thy bottle, to be preserved and looked upon; nay, I know they are in thy book, the book of thy remembrance." God has a b…”
“This is part of the performance of his vows; for vows of thankfulness properly accompany prayers for mercy, and when the mercy is received must be made good. When we study what we shall render this is the least we can resolve upon, to render praises to God--po…”
“It was the publican's prayer, Luke xviii. It is a pity that any should use it slightly and profanely, should cry, God be merciful to us, or, Lord, have mercy upon us, when they mean only to express their wonder, or surprise, or vexation, but God and his mercy …”
“(3.) What he will ascribe his salvation to: God shall send forth his mercy and truth. God is good in himself and faithful to every word that he has spoken, and so he makes it appear when he works deliverance for his people. We need no more to make us happy tha…”
“11 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth. How strangely is the tune altered here! David's prayers and complaints, by the lively actings of faith, are here, all of a sudden, turned into praises and thanksgivings; his sa…”
“It is indeed some disturbance to David: My soul is bowed down. It made him droop, and hang the head, to think that there should be those that bore him so much ill-will. It was destruction to themselves; they dug a pit for David, into the midst whereof they hav…”
“24 If by the grace of God we be brought into this even composed frame of spirit, we have great reason to be thankful. With reference to the worship of God: My heart is fixed to sing and give praise. It is implied that the heart is the main thing required in al…”
“When David was driven out into heathen lands he would not only not worship their gods, but he would openly avow his veneration for the God of Israel, would take his religion along with him wherever he went, would endeavour to bring others in love with it, and …”
“And what was their wickedness? It follows, " You weigh the violence of your hands in the earth " (or in the land ), "the peace of which you are appointed to be the conservators of." They did all the violence and injury they could, either to enrich or avenge th…”
“No sooner can they speak than they speak to God's dishonour; tongue-sins are some of the first of our actual transgressions. Their poison (that is, their ill-will, and the spite they bore to goodness and all good men, particularly to David) was like the poison…”
“Such shall the floods of ungodly men be, which sometimes make us afraid ( Ps. xviii. 4 ); so shall the proud waters be reduced, which threaten to go over our soul, Ps. cxxiv. Let us by faith then see what they shall be and then we shall not fear what they are.”
“We may, in faith, pray against the designs of the church's enemies, as the prophet does ( Hos. ix. 14 , Give them, O Lord! what wilt thou give them? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts ), which explains this prayer of the psalmist.”
“He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked; that is, there shall be abundance of bloodshed ( Ps. lxviii. 23 ), and it shall be as great a refreshment to the saints to see God glorified in the ruin of sinners as it is to a weary traveller to have his fee…”
“He is a God (so we read it), not a weak man, not an angel, not a mere name, not (as the atheists suggest) a creature of men's fear and fancy, not a deified hero, not the sun and moon, as idolaters imagined, but a God, a self-existent perfect Being; he it is th…”
“Sin appears here both exceedingly sinful and exceedingly dangerous, and God a just avenger of wrong, with which we should be affected in singing this psalm.”
“He knew his enemies were wicked transgressors, wilful, malicious, and hardened in their transgressions both against God and man, and therefore he sues for justice against them, judgment without mercy. Let not those expect to find mercy who never showed mercy, …”
“He pleads the bad character of his enemies. They are workers of iniquity, and therefore not only his enemies, but God's enemies; they are bloody men, and therefore not only his enemies, but enemies to all mankind. "Lord, let not the workers of iniquity prevail…”