
My bible software of choice is Accordance. I have a lot of their modules, and of course they wouldn’t mind at all if I bought more. So most days a week, they send me an email informing me of their sales. They have individual books, and of course full sets of bible commentaries.
Yes, I’ve bought a few, and they’re pricey. And sometimes when I tell people I’ve bought ’em, they’re stunned. “You spent that on a bible commentary? You know
Pfff, $10? I could get it for free.
I mean, I already have it. Decades ago (yes, it’s been multiple decades now) I bought a CD full of public-domain bibles and Christian literature, and of course Henry’s commentary is in there too. Plus a few other multi-volume bible commentaries.
I don’t look at ’em much, because those commentaries—like Henry’s, and many of the other free commentaries on the internet—are devotional in nature. That is, the commentator read some bible, wrote down his thoughts about ’em, and that’s what you have. Some of them are clever and insightful. Some are most definitely not clever and insightful; they’re the sort of regurgitated pop-culture junk you can find in Facebook posts. They’re not worth any money you might spend on ’em, so hopefully you’ve spent none!
What I actually want in a bible commentary—which is why, over the years, I’ve paid a bunch of money for such commentaries—is ancient history. Study of the ancient languages. Archeological evidence, if you have any. Maybe a thoughtful discussion on the multiple ways Christians have viewed this particular scripture over the years, just so I can see where the points of debate are… and maybe hear a view I’ve not heard before in dozens of sermons.
Free commentaries like that are mighty hard to come by, but here’s one: The International Critical Commentary. “International” in that it was written by Americans, Brits, and Canadians, and “critical” in that the authors compare different ancient manuscripts of the bible in order to get the best reading of the text.
The ICC is still being published by T&T Clark, but the older editions of the commentary are out of copyright, so they’ve been scanned and posted on the internet by the good folks at Google Books and Internet Archive. I’ve listed below what I can find. Internet Archive has multiple scans of these books, so if you don’t like the one I’ve linked to, find another! Google Books, on the other hand, will remove books if a publisher pushes ’em hard enough—even if books are in the public domain. (Just goes to show you the difference between a non-profit which stands up for something, and a for-profit which sometimes really doesn’t.)
Anywho, in some of the books you’ll find a list of all the books of the bible, and wonder why on earth I don’t have that volume (it’s the one you wanted to look at most, right?) and it’s because the guys who were supposed to write that book, ultimately didn’t. Optimistic advertising, I guess.