Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible - Hosea

As first among the best in point of usefulness, we are bound to mention one whose name is now a household word—MATTHEW HENRY. He is most pious and pithy, sound and sensible, suggestive and sober, succinct and trustworthy. You will find him to be glittering with metaphors, rich in analogies, overflowing with illustrations, and abounding in reflections. He delights in alliterations and appositions, but his style is, on the whole, plain, racy, and full of force. He sees the text, as it were, at a glance, and gives the result of a profound critical knowledge of the originals to the equals of his day. He is deeply spiritual, heavenly, and beneficial, finds the content of each text, and from all of them draws hugely practical and accurate lessons. His is a kind of commentary which ought to be placed where I saw it in the old meeting-house at Chester—chained to the vestry desk that any one might go in and read it. He is the commentator for the people, the old Christian’s companion, suitable to anybody, instructive to everybody.

Every minister ought to read Matthew Henry entirely and carefully through at least once. I should recommend you to do it in the twelve months after you leave college. Begin at the beginning, and resolve to go through the land from Dan to Beersheba. You will acquire a vast stock of sermon matter by so doing, if you read with a notebook handy; thoughts will swarm around you like twittering swallows around a roof in autumn. If you publicly expound the chapter which you have been reading, your congregation will be astonished at the freshness of your observations and the profundity of your thoughts, and then you can tell them what a great treasure Henry is.                                                      

C.H. Spurgeon