Spurgeon's Commentary on Commentary
It's insightful to read opinions from different eras. Charles Spurgeon's tone typically strikes me as severe but refreshing. He suffers no fools and doesn't mind pointing them out publically either.
His thoughts on men who do not value commentaries:
"It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others." ha!
Here are his favorite general commentaries:
Calvin, Ness, Henry, Trapp, Poole, Bengel
And his favorites for specific books:
"Caryl on Job will not exhaust the patience of a student who loves every letter of the Word; even Collinges, with his nine hundred and nine pages upon one chapter of the Song, will not be too full for the preacher's use; nor will Manton's long metre edition of the hundred and nineteenth Psalm (Psalm 119:1-176) be too profuse. No stranger could imagine the vast amount of real learning to be found in old commentaries like the following:—Durham on Solomon's Song, Wilcocks on Psalms and Proverbs, Jermin on Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, Greenhill on Ezekiel, Burroughs on Hosea, Ainsworth on the Pentateuch, King on Jonah, Hutcheson on John, Peter Martyr on Romans, &c., and in Willett, Sibbes, Bayne, Elton, Byfield, Daille, Adams, Taylor, Barlow, Goodwin, and others on the various epistles."
His thoughts on men who do not value commentaries:
"It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others." ha!
Here are his favorite general commentaries:
Calvin, Ness, Henry, Trapp, Poole, Bengel
And his favorites for specific books:
"Caryl on Job will not exhaust the patience of a student who loves every letter of the Word; even Collinges, with his nine hundred and nine pages upon one chapter of the Song, will not be too full for the preacher's use; nor will Manton's long metre edition of the hundred and nineteenth Psalm (Psalm 119:1-176) be too profuse. No stranger could imagine the vast amount of real learning to be found in old commentaries like the following:—Durham on Solomon's Song, Wilcocks on Psalms and Proverbs, Jermin on Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, Greenhill on Ezekiel, Burroughs on Hosea, Ainsworth on the Pentateuch, King on Jonah, Hutcheson on John, Peter Martyr on Romans, &c., and in Willett, Sibbes, Bayne, Elton, Byfield, Daille, Adams, Taylor, Barlow, Goodwin, and others on the various epistles."
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