Commentaries

Classic commentaries, open at the verse you are reading.

Rightly includes four public-domain Bible commentaries — Matthew Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Barnes’ Notes and Calvin — divided into passages and anchored to the verses they comment on. Open a verse, and what each of them wrote about it is right there.

What is included

Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary on the Whole BibleMatthew Henry (1662–1714)
All 66 booksDevotional and practical: the classic for drawing out what a passage means for the reader’s life.
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole BibleRobert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown (1871)
All 66 booksConcise, verse by verse, with attention to the wording of the original. Usually called JFB.
Barnes’ Notes on the New TestamentAlbert Barnes (1798–1870)
The 27 books of the New TestamentWritten for Sunday-school teachers: clear explanations of words, customs and arguments.
Calvin’s CommentariesJohn Calvin (1509–1564), in English translation
48 books: Genesis–Joshua, Psalms, the Prophets and the New Testament except 2–3 John and RevelationThe Reformer’s exposition, close to the text and its argument.

How verse anchoring works

Each commentary is split into passages, and every passage is attached to the range of verses it discusses. When you open Romans 8:28 you see Matthew Henry’s comments on verses 26–28, the notes from Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Barnes and Calvin on verse 28, and any introductions to the chapter or the book — grouped by commentary, each with its author and source.

You never leave the text to hunt through another book. Swipe up from a verse and the commentaries are there; close them and you are back where you were reading.

The text, as the authors wrote it

The commentaries are reproduced verbatim from public-domain editions prepared by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library and the CrossWire Bible Society. Nothing is summarised or rewritten. Where Calvin’s text was incomplete in one edition, missing chapters were filled from another public-domain source, and the source is recorded.

Read them as voices, not verdicts

These are historic works, written between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries from within the Protestant tradition. They are rich, and they are sometimes dated. Rightly shows them beside the text so you can weigh them against it — which is the point of studying the Bible yourself. To go beneath the English, tap a word for its Greek or Hebrew.

Coming later

Your own library: import the PDFs and ebooks you own and keep them anchored to the text in the same way. That is not in the first release; we will say when it arrives.

The iPhone beta is coming.

Rightly is in development. A TestFlight beta opens first; Android and the web follow.

Get notified when the beta opens

Or email and we will write when the TestFlight beta opens.