This app draws on centuries of biblical scholarship to help you understand scripture. Here is a full explanation of where the commentary, word study data, and AI responses come from.
Every commentary, lexicon, dictionary, and word-study reference in this application is in the public domain — freely available to everyone. The Bible translations below carry their own licenses, which are noted individually.
Commentary Sources
Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentaries
Classic English expositions · 18th–19th century
For most passages the app draws on several of the great verse-by-verse commentaries of the English-speaking tradition:
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary — a practical, devotional exposition of the whole Bible (early 18th century).
The Pulpit Commentary — a large homiletical and exegetical commentary (1880s).
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers — careful, scholarly notes on the text (1870s–80s).
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (JFB) — a concise critical and explanatory commentary on the whole Bible (1871).
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible — a detailed verse-by-verse exposition (1746–1763).
John Wesley's Notes on the Bible — John Wesley's explanatory notes on the whole Bible (1754–1765).
Spurgeon's Expositions — Charles Spurgeon's expository readings (19th century).
All of these commentaries are in the public domain. Coverage varies by passage — not every commentary addresses every verse.
Historic Church Writings
Various authors · 1st century AD – Reformation
The app draws on an extensive collection of Christian writings spanning nearly two thousand years of church history. Early figures include Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, the Gregories, Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, and Jerome. Later writers include the Venerable Bede, Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Thomas Aquinas, with Reformation-era voices such as John Calvin, Martin Luther, and Ulrich Zwingli.
These writings offer perspective on how Christians across different centuries, traditions, and cultures understood and applied the biblical text.
Coverage varies significantly by passage. Not all passages have commentary from all periods available. All writings used are in the public domain.
Bible Translations
Available Translations
Five translations for all readers, plus the NLT in Simple mode
These are the Bible translations you can read in the app. Most are in the public domain; where a translation is under copyright, its terms are noted and observed:
BSB — Berean Standard Bible. Produced in cooperation with Bible Hub and the Berean Bible Translation Committee. Dedicated to the public domain.
KJV — King James Version (1611). Public domain.
WEB — World English Bible. A modern-English update of the ASV, dedicated to the public domain.
If you believe any translation is being used outside its permitted terms, please contact us at jonathonjamesdurno@gmail.com.
Word Study
Original Language Word Studies
Hebrew (Old Testament) · Greek (New Testament)
When you tap a word, the app identifies its original biblical-language form — Hebrew for the Old Testament, Greek for the New Testament — using the verse's interlinear data and Strong's numbering. It then shows the transliteration, the lexical definition, and contextual notes on how the word is used in scripture.
This helps you understand nuances that can be lost in translation, such as the range of meaning behind a single Greek or Hebrew word, or how the same word is used differently across different authors.
The lexical data is drawn from established public-domain reference works:
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance — Strong's numbers, lemmas, and definitions.
Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) — Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon.
Abbott-Smith — Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament.
ISBE (International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia) and Girdlestone's Synonyms of the Old Testament — dictionary and encyclopaedia entries.
The explanation is written by AI, but it is grounded in these real lexicon and dictionary entries — which you can read yourself under the Sources tab of any word study. All of these reference works are in the public domain.
AI Assistance
AI-Assisted Responses
Grounded in the commentaries above
The theological analysis and follow-up chat features are powered by an AI language model. Crucially, the AI is given the actual text of the relevant commentaries, lexicons, and dictionary entries for each passage — it does not answer from general knowledge alone.
When the AI cites a source — the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, John Gill, Spurgeon, or one of the historic church writings — it is drawing on the real retrieved text from that source. It is instructed to draw only on what the provided sources actually say, and to stay silent on a point rather than invent content where the sources are thin. Every source it can quote is shown to you under the Sources tab.
AI responses should be read alongside the source commentaries, not as a replacement. Always verify significant claims against the original texts.