My review of The New Matthew Henry Commentary from Zondervan

The New Matthew Henry Commentary from Zondervan

I purchased The New Matthew Henry Commentary from Zondervan for three of my friends recently. We are all pastors at the same church and I've benefited greatly from the original Matthew Henry Commentary during sermon preparation. Henry delivers the "old school" gospel. This was the book that basically served as seminary training for the English revivalist George Whitefield, who read a multi-volume series repeatedly when he was a teenager. I especially like Henry's commentaries on the Jesus' parables in the gospels. 

Despite the value that I've derived from the commentary, I had previously hesitated from passing this on to my friends because the language is very old and the particular book I use, an unabridged, 2,000-page, 5.6-lbs beast from Hendrickson, has smaller type than my pocket bible. I have to use a special reading lamp when using the commentary to keep from going blind. Don't get me wrong--I still love it to death! I did major in English Literature in college, after all.

Anyway, the "new" version from Zondervan was released in late 2010 and promised updated, modern language. And, it's incredibly inexpensive, listing at just under $20 from Barnes & Noble. 

So, the new books arrived the other day and I made an inspection. The good: 1) Nice quality. The paper is thin, but super-bright. 2) The text is very readable. Zondervan did a great job of handling the point-by-point style of Henry. 3) The updated language seems pretty faithful to Henry's original. The bad: 1) As I was afraid, the "updated" language also meant cutting a lot of wordiness, which I'm not going to defend. Yes, Matthew Henry was extremely wordy. And, he would leave no pebble unturned when examining the scriptures. However, a quick comparison of the commentary on Genesis 2 revealed that the editing job was indeed an abridgment, not simply an "updating" of the language into modern phraseology. The section I compared lost at least half of the words. Yes, some of the cut sentences were repetitious, but they explained what Henry was saying in a fuller sense.

If you're looking for an accessible Matthew Henry Commentary, this might be the one to go with. I'd say it compares very well with other abridged versions. I'm not ashamed to give this book as a gift. However, negative points to Zondervan for not being clear that this is an abridged version that loses a lot of the original material.