Barnes' Notes: Minor Prophets, vol. 1: Hosea to Jonah
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Albert Barnes and James Murphy wrote this verse-by-verse commentary on Hosea to Jonah. Published in the 1800s, it is still well-loved and well-read by evangelicals who appreciate Barnes' pastoral insights into the Scripture. It is not a technical work, but provides informative observations on the text, intended to be helpful to those teaching Sunday School. Today, it is ideally suited to anyone teaching or preaching the Word of God, whether a professional minister or layperson.
Top Highlights
“‘But temporal prosperity is no proof either of stability or of the favor of God. Where the law of God is observed, there, even amid the pressure of outward calamity, is the assurance of ultimate prosperity. Where God is disobeyed, there is the pledge of coming destruction. The seasons when men feel most secure against future chastisement, are often the preludes of the most signal revolutions.’” (Page 19)
“He would, like many of us, govern God’s world better than God Himself. Short-sighted and presumptuous! Yet not more short-sighted than those who, in fact, quarrel with God’s Providence, the existence of evil, the baffling of good, ‘the prison-walls of obstacles and trials,’ in what we would do for God’s glory. What is all discontent, but anger with God?” (Page 421)
“But Jehu, by cleaving, against the Will of God, to Jeroboam’s sin, which served his own political ends, shewed that, in the slaughter of his master, he acted not, as he pretended, out of zeal1 for the Will of God, but served his own will and his own ambition only. By his disobedience to the one command of God, he shewed that he would have equally disobeyed the other, had it been contrary to his own will of interest. He had no principle of obedience.” (Page 22)
“Shallum slew Zechariah; Menahem slew Shallum; Pekah slew the son of Menahem; Hoshea slew Pekah. The whole kingdom of Israel was a military despotism, and, as in the Roman empire, those in command came to the throne. Baasha, Zimri, Omri, Jehu, Menahem, Pekah, held military office before they became kingsr.” (Page 11)
- Title: Barnes' Notes: Minor Prophets, vol. 1: Hosea to Jonah
- Authors: Albert Barnes and James Murphy
- Publisher: Funk and Wagnalls
- Publication Date: 1885
- Pages: 427
Albert Barnes graduated from Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, in 1820, and from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1823. Barnes was ordained as a Presbyterian minister by the presbytery of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, in 1825, and was the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Morristown, New Jersey (1825–1830), and of the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia (1830–1867).
He held a prominent place in the New School branch of the Presbyterians during the Old School-New School Controversy, to which he adhered on the division of the denomination in 1837. In 1836, he had been tried (but not convicted) for heresy, mostly due to the views he expressed in Notes on Romans of the imputation of the sin of Adam, original sin and the atonement; the bitterness stirred up by this trial contributed towards widening the breach between the conservative and the progressive elements in the church. He was an eloquent preacher, but his reputation rests chiefly on his expository works, which are said to have had a larger circulation both in Europe and America than any others of their class. Of the well-known Notes on the New Testament, it is said that more than a million volumes had been issued by 1870. The Notes on Job, the Psalms, Isaiah and Daniel were also popularly distributed. The popularity of these works rested on how Barnes simplified Biblical criticism so that new developments in the field were made accessible to the general public.