חHesedApp Store · soon

Voices through the ages

Twenty centuries,
verse by verse.

You are not the first person to sit with this verse. Hesed gathers 165,000 commentary cards from more than 300 authors — church fathers, medieval doctors, reformers, and modern scholars — and files each one under the verses it speaks to. Open a verse; the room fills with voices.

Augustine of Hippo✦John Chrysostom✦Thomas Aquinas✦John Calvin✦Martin Luther✦Charles Spurgeon✦Matthew Henry✦John Wesley✦Origen✦Jerome✦Ambrose of Milan✦Gregory the Great✦Bernard of Clairvaux✦Cyril of Alexandria✦Ephrem the Syrian✦Athanasius✦Basil the Great✦Gregory of Nazianzus✦Anselm of Canterbury✦Thomas à Kempis✦Julian of Norwich✦Jonathan Edwards✦Albert Barnes✦Adam Clarke✦Augustine of Hippo✦John Chrysostom✦Thomas Aquinas✦John Calvin✦Martin Luther✦Charles Spurgeon✦Matthew Henry✦John Wesley✦Origen✦Jerome✦Ambrose of Milan✦Gregory the Great✦Bernard of Clairvaux✦Cyril of Alexandria✦Ephrem the Syrian✦Athanasius✦Basil the Great✦Gregory of Nazianzus✦Anselm of Canterbury✦Thomas à Kempis✦Julian of Norwich✦Jonathan Edwards✦Albert Barnes✦Adam Clarke✦

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Berean Standard Bible

Early Church · †407

John Chrysostom

on John 3:16

For by the expression, “so loved,” and that other, “God the world,” He shows the great strength of His love. Large and infinite was the interval between the two. He, the immortal, who is without beginning, the Infinite Majesty, they but dust and ashes… and these He “loved.” Again, the words which He added after these are alike significant, when He saith, that “He gave His Only-begotten Son,” not a servant, not an Angel, not an Archangel.

Read the whole of it in Hesed →

Early Church · †430

Augustine of Hippo

on John 3:16

Thus did God love the human race, that He gave His only begotten Son for the life of the world. For unless the Father had delivered life, we would not have life; and unless that life itself had died, death would not have been slain. Indeed, the Lord Christ Himself is life… He also, by the Prophet, threatened death with death, saying: I will be your death, O death; I will be your sting, O hell!

Read the whole of it in Hesed →

Reformation · †1564

John Calvin

on John 3:16

Christ opens up the first cause, and, as it were, the source of our salvation, and he does so, that no doubt may remain; for our minds cannot find calm repose, until we arrive at the unmerited love of God. As the whole matter of our salvation must not be sought any where else than in Christ, so we must see whence Christ came to us, and why he was offered to be our Savior.

Read the whole of it in Hesed →

Early Modern · †1791

John Wesley

on John 3:16

Yea, and this was the very design of God’s love in sending him into the world. Whosoever believeth on him — With that faith which worketh by love, and hold fast the beginning of his confidence steadfast to the end. God so loved the world — That is, all men under heaven; even those that despise his love, and will for that cause finally perish.

Read the whole of it in Hesed →

swipe sideways →

Psalm 23:1

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

Berean Standard Bible

Early Church · †397

Ambrose of Milan

on Psalm 23:1

How often have you heard Psalm 23 and not understood it! See how it is applicable to the heavenly sacraments: “The Lord feeds me, and I shall want nothing; he has set me in a place of pasture; he has brought me on the water of refreshment; he has converted my soul.” … Your rod is power, the staff suffering, that is, the eternal divinity of Christ, but also corporeal suffering; the one created, the other redeemed.

Read the whole of it in Hesed →

Early Church · †430

Augustine of Hippo

on Psalm 23:1

Therefore, He governs you, who carries you. For when you say, The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing of your own to trust in yourself. Beware of arrogance, beware; for He who mercifully lifted you from the earth half-dead, carries the humble, but hurls down the proud. When you say fearfully, and walk in innocence: The Lord is my shepherd; you will confidently add, and I shall not want. Because nothing is lacking to those who fear Him.

Read the whole of it in Hesed →

Reformation · †1564

John Calvin

on Psalm 23:1

That he might not, in the time of his great prosperity, be like worldly men, who, when they seem to themselves to be fortunate, bury God in forgetfulness, and luxuriously plunge themselves into their pleasures, David delights himself in God, the author of all the blessings which he enjoyed. It contains simply a thanksgiving, from which it appears that it was composed when David had obtained peaceable possession of the kingdom.

Read the whole of it in Hesed →

swipe sideways →

Genesis 1:1

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Berean Standard Bible

Early Church · †379

Basil of Caesarea

on Genesis 1:1

If sometimes, on a bright night, whilst gazing with watchful eyes on the inexpressible beauty of the stars, you have thought of the Creator of all things; if you have asked yourself who it is that has dotted heaven with such flowers, and why visible things are even more useful than beautiful… then you are prepared to hear: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Read the whole of it in Hesed →

Early Church · †235

Hippolytus of Rome

on Genesis 1:1

And the blessed prophet, indeed, the great Moses, wrote this book, and designated and marked it with the title, The Book of Being, i.e., “of created beings.”

Read the whole of it in Hesed →

Modern · †1832

Adam Clarke

on Genesis 1:1

God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth — בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ, Bereshith bara Elohim eth hashshamayim veeth haarets. Many attempts have been made to define the term God: as to the word itself, it is pure Anglo-Saxon, and among our ancestors signified, not only the Divine Being, but also good; as in their apprehensions it appeared that God and good were correlative terms.

Read the whole of it in Hesed →

⟶

…and 165,000 more cards, on every verse of Scripture, waiting in the app.

swipe sideways →

From the apostolic age to the present.

The library spans every era of the church: the apostolic fathers, the early church of Chrysostom and Augustine, the medieval doctors from Bede to Aquinas, the Reformation of Luther and Calvin, the early-modern preachers Wesley and Henry, and modern scholarship. Cards are filed by verse and labeled by era, so you can watch an interpretation unfold across the centuries — or hear one century argue with another.

See what these voices were reading: the originals →

חֶסֶד

Go deeper than you thought you could.

Hesed launches soon on the App Store.

Coming soon