Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary on the Whole Bible

The commentary known everywhere simply as "JFB" is the joint work of three ministers of the nineteenth century. Robert Jamieson (1802–1880) was minister of St. Paul's, Glasgow, and Moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly in 1872. Andrew Robert Fausset (1821–1910), an Irishman educated at Trinity College, Dublin, was rector of St. Cuthbert's, York, and also compiled Fausset's Bible Dictionary. David Brown (1803–1897) was a Free Church of Scotland minister who became professor and then principal of the Free Church College in Aberdeen.

SwordSearcher includes the commentary in two forms, as separate modules:

• JFB is the single-volume Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible of 1871, the edition most people know. It is compact, covers every book, and has more than 19,000 entries.
• JFBu is the unabridged three-volume edition. It contains a great deal more material, most of it in the Old Testament, and includes the authors' introductions.

C. H. Spurgeon told his students: "Of this I have a very high opinion. It is the joint work of Dr. Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and Dr. David Brown. It is to some extent a compilation and condensation of other men's thoughts, but it is sufficiently original to claim a place in every minister's library: indeed it contains so great a variety of information that if a man had no other exposition he would find himself at no great loss if he possessed this and used it diligently."

The commentary is conservative and evangelical throughout, and its authors do not hesitate to find Christ in the Old Testament. The note on John 3:16 in the one-volume edition gives the flavor of the New Testament portion:

What proclamation of the Gospel has been so oft on the lips of missionaries and preachers in every age since it was first uttered? What has sent such thrilling sensations through millions of mankind? What has been honored to bring such multitudes to the feet of Christ? What to kindle in the cold and selfish breasts of mortals the fires of self-sacrificing love to mankind, as these words of transparent simplicity, yet overpowering majesty? The picture embraces several distinct compartments: "THE WORLD"—in its widest sense—ready "to perish"; the immense "LOVE OF GOD" to that perishing world, measurable only, and conceivable only, by the gift which it drew forth from Him; THE GIFT itself—"He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son."

The introduction to Psalm 23 in the unabridged edition shows the fuller treatment found there:

The 22nd, 23rd, and 24th Psalms form a Trilogy: Psalms 22, Christ on the cross; Psalms 23, God the Father's Shepherd-like care of Him, even in dying, and His anticipation of heaven; Psalms 24, His ascension there. So Christ's followers (Joh 10:2,14; Heb 13:20; 1Pe 2:25; 5:4; cf. Ge 48:15; 49:24 the first use of the image). The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. The Hebrew is emphatic: 'I want nothing.' This implies a supply of every possible want of body, soul, and spirit, in the Lord.

A practical suggestion: keep JFB in your everyday set of commentary tabs for quick reference, and open JFBu when a passage needs more.