Bible Commentaries (Bijbelverklaringen) — Research

Goal

Identify Bible commentaries that are public domain and usable for commercial purposes, with available machine-readable data we can integrate into the app.

Public Domain Commentaries

All works published before 1924 (US) are public domain. The following classic commentaries qualify:

Commentary	Author(s)	Published	Coverage	Notes
Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary	Matthew Henry	1706–1721	Whole Bible	Most popular classic commentary. Widely available in digital formats.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary	Matthew Henry	1706 (abridged)	Whole Bible	Shorter version, easier to integrate.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (JFB)	Jamieson, Fausset, Brown	1871	Whole Bible	Critical & explanatory. Excellent scholarly depth.
Albert Barnes' Notes	Albert Barnes	1832–1851	Whole Bible (NT strongest)	Popular devotional/academic commentary.
John Calvin's Commentaries	John Calvin	1540–1564	Most of OT + NT	Reformed tradition. 400+ years old, still highly regarded.
Adam Clarke's Commentary	Adam Clarke	1810–1826	Whole Bible	Linguistic analysis, historical context. Note: some digital editions are behind paywalls.
John Gill's Exposition	John Gill	1746–1766	Whole Bible	Baptist/Reformed. Very detailed. Some digital editions are premium.
John Wesley's Notes	John Wesley	1755–1765	Whole Bible	Methodist tradition. Shorter notes.
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge	R.A. Torrey (compiled)	1836	Whole Bible	Cross-reference focused, 500k+ references.
Geneva Bible Translation Notes	Various reformers	1560	Whole Bible	Historical Protestant study notes.
Scofield Reference Notes	C.I. Scofield	1917	Whole Bible	Dispensationalist. 1917 edition is public domain.
People's New Testament	B.W. Johnson	1891	NT only	Accessible commentary.
Burkitt's Expository Notes	William Burkitt	1724	NT only	Practical/devotional.
Keil & Delitzsch	C.F. Keil, Franz Delitzsch	1857–1878	OT only	Premier OT scholarly commentary.

Dutch / Netherlands-specific

Commentary	Published	Coverage	Status
Kanttekeningen bij de Statenvertaling	1637 (original), 1657 (corrected)	Whole Bible	Public domain. The official marginal notes commissioned by the Synod of Dort. Available online at statenvertaling.nl and statenvertaling.net.

Machine-Readable Sources

Best option: HistoricalChristianFaith/Commentaries-Database

URL: https://github.com/HistoricalChristianFaith/Commentaries-Database
Format: TOML files, can be compiled to JSON, CSV, or SQLite
Content: Church fathers + classic commentaries organized by book/verse
License: Not explicitly stated — sources are mostly public domain texts
Verdict: Usable, but verify individual commentary licenses. Good for patristic sources.

Bible-Discovery.com Downloads

URL: http://www.bible-discovery.com/bible-download-commentaries.php
Format: Proprietary format for Bible-Discovery software
Free commentaries: Matthew Henry (complete + concise), JFB, Wesley, Barnes, Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, Scofield 1917, Geneva Notes, Burkitt, People's NT, Kanttekeningen Statenvertaling
Paid commentaries: Adam Clarke, John Gill, Matthew Poole — these have been digitized by the company and they charge for their digitization work
Verdict: Useful reference list, but format may not be directly importable.

StudyLight.org

URL: https://www.studylight.org/commentaries.html
Content: 143 Bible commentaries freely available online
Format: HTML (would need scraping)
Verdict: Good reference, but no structured data download.

Free Use Bible API

URL: https://bible.helloao.org/docs/reference/
Format: JSON and USFM
Content: Some commentaries available via API
Verdict: Worth investigating for structured access.

DBNL (Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren)

URL: https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_sta001stat01_01/
Content: Statenvertaling 1637 full text
Format: HTML, part of the KB (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) national dataset
Verdict: Source for Kanttekeningen if we need to scrape ourselves.

Commercial Use Assessment

Clearly safe for commercial use:

Matthew Henry (both versions) — Public domain, explicitly "copy freely"
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown — Public domain (1871)
Albert Barnes' Notes — Public domain (1830s–1850s)
John Wesley's Notes — Public domain (1755)
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — Public domain (1836)
Geneva Bible Notes — Public domain (1560)
Scofield 1917 — Public domain
Kanttekeningen Statenvertaling — Public domain (1637/1657)
John Calvin's Commentaries — Public domain (1540s–1560s)
Keil & Delitzsch — Public domain (1857–1878)

Caution needed:

Adam Clarke — Text is public domain, but some digital editions (e.g., Bible-Discovery) charge for their digitization. You'd need to source from a free edition.
John Gill — Same situation as Adam Clarke.
Any modern annotation or formatting added by a publisher on top of public domain text may have its own copyright.

Key principle:

The original text of all pre-1924 works is public domain. However, specific digital editions may have copyright on their typesetting, formatting, annotations, or corrections. Always source from explicitly public domain digital editions.

Recommendation for This Project

Start with (easiest to integrate, most value):

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary — Universally available, short enough per verse, great for devotional context
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown — More scholarly, good for deeper study
Kanttekeningen Statenvertaling — Already have Dutch SV text; the kanttekeningen are the natural companion

Data acquisition strategy:

Check if the HistoricalChristianFaith repo has the commentaries we want in usable form
Look for existing JSON/SQL dumps of Matthew Henry and JFB
For Kanttekeningen: scrape from statenvertaling.nl or find an e-Sword/SWORD module to convert
Import into bible.db as a new commentaries table keyed by book/chapter/verse + source

Research date: 2026-02-23