Matthew Henry's Commentary - Jonah, Micah, and Nahum

As the foremost among the best in terms of usefulness, we are obliged to mention the one whose name is already a household word: MATTHEW HENRY. He is supremely pious and concise, solid and sensible, suggestive and sober, succinct and reliable. You will find that he shines with metaphors, is rich in analogies, overflows with illustrations, and abounds in reflections. He delights in appositions and alliterations, but his style is, on the whole, simple, evocative, and full of content. He sees the meaning of the text directly and offers the result of a meticulous critical knowledge of the originals on a par with the best critics of his time. He is profoundly spiritual, heavenly, and beneficial, finds the content of every text and from all of them extracts enormously practical and accurate lessons. His is a type of commentary that should be placed where I saw it in the old meeting house in Chester: chained in the hall so that anyone could read it. It is the commentary of the common man, the old companion of the Christian, suitable for anyone, instructive for all.

Every pastor should read Matthew Henry completely and carefully at least once. I recommend doing so in the twelve months after finishing seminary. Start at the beginning, and aim to traverse the land from Dan to Beersheba. You will acquire an enormous supply for your sermons if you read it with a notebook at hand; thoughts will flutter around you like twittering swallows around a roof at the coming of autumn. If you publicly expound the chapter you have been reading, your congregation will be astonished by the novelty of your observations and the depth of your thoughts, and then you can tell them what a great treasure Henry is.                                                      

C.H. Spurgeon