The Matthew Henry commentary is one of the most widely used commentaries available. Written with the layman in mind, it has been in use for 300 years. The Matthew Henry Study Bible from Hendrickson Publishers provides a good portion of this commentary in an easy to use single volume. This is the revised edition of this Study Bible, which contains updated references, concordance, and maps.
Pros
- Matthew Henry commentary
Cons
- Red letter is light
- No room for writing
Features
- KJV
- Red-letter
- Matthew Henry’s commentary
- Book introductions
- References
- Translation notes
- Concordance
- Maps
- 2322 pages
- ISBN: 9781598563405
Matthew Henry
Matthew Henry was a Presbyterian pastor who lived from 1662 to 1714. He is best known for two works: Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, a popular devotional, and Complete Commentary, a 6 volume exhaustive verse-by-verse study of every book of the Bible.
Cover and Binding
The Bible I’m reviewing is hard-cover. The pages are glued in sections. There does seem to be a line of stitching in the front and back, so it could be sewn. It looks average in its construction quality.
Paper and Print
The paper is the standard paper I’ve seen in most study Bibles nowadays. It’s thin and fairly opaque. Readability is not bad. It could be improved with line-matching (but I’m sure that would increase the cost).
The font looks like an 8-point font with a 9.5-point leading. There is more space between the lines than normal, giving plenty of room for underlining. The print quality seems to be consistent throughout. This is a red-letter edition. The red goes all the way through Revelation. The red is a little lighter than I like, but it doesn’t fade. It doesn’t have pronunciation marks but it does have italics for supplied words.
Layout
The text is presented in two-column, paragraph format. The references and translation notes appear in the inner column, and Matthew Henry’s commentary is located on the bottom half of the page. The primary difference in the layout between this one and any other study Bible is the references in the inner column. It does have section headings within the text, which are printed much larger and bolder than the text.
Translation Notes and References
Notes and references are keyed to the text with the standard numbers for notes and letters for references. Chapter and verse numbers are printed in the inner margin in bold. This makes it easy to locate what you’re looking for. There are 7 verses for Genesis 1:1.
Matthew Henry’s Commentary
The primary focus of this Bible of course is Matthew Henry’s commentary. Of course this cannot include the complete Matthew Henry Commentary. That would take volumes (6 volumes to be exact). There is more commentary than I expected. Almost every page contains a half a page of commentary.
Henry’s commentary comes from his work as a Pastor, meant to be read and studied by the common person. The commentary has been revised and updated (mostly punctuation) including updates to the style, spelling, punctuation, grammar, and word choices. The updates remain true to Henry’s meanings. Any insertions for clarity are labeled with brackets.
Some of Henry’s comments are placed in separate boxes to highlight a specific topic.
As with all commentary and study Bibles, I recommend that you do your own study and only use the commentary as reference. Remember – man is fallible.
Book Introductions
The book introductions are short and to the point. The take about a half a page and include information on the author, date, purpose, and major theme. Some of the introductions contain information from Henry’s commentary.
Concordance
The concordance is 113 pages. It has two columns of text. It has about an average number of references. It has enough to be useful for study. There are 18 verses for God.
Maps
There are 8 pages of maps. They are full color and are printed on thick paper. They look great. One of the maps is topographical. They contain the expected journeys of Paul, and the also contain Christian and Jewish communities. Biblical maps would be more useful if there was an index to maps.
Conclusion
There is a lot of information in this study Bible. The notes are great resources for personal or group study as well as sermon and class prep. This Bible provides a great way to obtain the more important portions of Matthew Henry’s commentary without having to have all 6 complete volumes.
This Bible was provided for free for review by Hendrickson Publishers. I was not required to give a positive review – only an honest review.