Lincoln Is Not in the Bible — but the Second Inaugural Is Full of It

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Lincoln is not in the Bible. It is an English city, and the name means, roughly, the colony at the pool.

Its most famous bearer gave the most theologically serious speech any American president has given, and it is worth the visit.

Lincoln comes from the city in England, whose Roman name was Lindum Colonia — a Brittonic word for a pool or lake, plus the Latin for a settlement of veterans. The pool is still there.

The city name became a surname, and the surname became a given name, largely in America and largely because of one man.

No. It is Latin and Brittonic and belongs to a city in Britain.

Abraham Lincoln delivered it on 4 March 1865, a month before he was killed, with the war nearly over. It runs to about seven hundred words, and roughly a quarter of it is about God.

What makes it remarkable is the refusal to claim him. Both sides, he says, read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. Then:

“The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

He quotes Matthew 18:7 directly — “Woe unto the world because of offences” — and applies it to slavery as an offence that had come, and for which the war might be the appointed removal.

And then the sentence that is unlike anything else in American political speech: if God wills that the war continue until every drop of blood drawn by the lash is paid by another drawn by the sword, then still it must be said that “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” — which is Psalm 19:9.

He is quoting a psalm to say that a verdict against his own country would be just.

The address ends without triumph: with malice toward none, with charity for all, and a plea to bind up the nation’s wounds.

The speech is the opposite of what a victorious leader is expected to say, and it is the opposite of how Scripture is usually used in public life.

Lincoln does not claim God is on his side. He says both sides asked and neither was answered as it wanted, and that the purposes at work are not available for inspection.

That is closer to the book of Job than to a campaign, and it is closer to what Scripture actually models. When Joshua meets the commander of the Lord’s army and asks whether he is for them or for their enemies, the answer is “Neither” (Joshua 5:13-14).

Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! (Matthew 18:7)

The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. (Psalm 19:9)

Judge not, that ye be not judged. (Matthew 7:1, in the form Lincoln quotes)

May we stop short of claiming that God agrees with us.

May we be able to say that a judgment against us would be just, and mean it.

And may we hold malice toward none while the wound is still open, which is the hard part.

Is Lincoln a biblical name?

No. It comes from the English city, whose Roman name was Lindum Colonia — a pool, and a settlement.

What does Lincoln mean?

Roughly “the colony at the pool,” from a Brittonic word for a lake plus the Latin colonia.

Did Abraham Lincoln quote the Bible?

Extensively, and most seriously in the Second Inaugural Address of 4 March 1865, which quotes Matthew 18:7, Matthew 7:1 and Psalm 19:9.

What is the Second Inaugural’s argument?

That both sides read the same Bible and prayed to the same God, that the prayers of both could not be answered, and that the Almighty has his own purposes.

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