Commentaries API

Add historical commentary alongside scripture, from a single chapter through a complete offline collection. The Commentaries API publishes approved CrossWire SWORD commentaries as plain-text JSON addressed with the same numeric book, chapter, and verse coordinates used across GetBible.

A commentary may cover a small selection of passages or an extensive part of scripture. Discover actual coverage through its book index; applications do not need to assume every commentary contains every book.

Start here#

curl --fail --silent --show-error \
  'https://commentaries.getbible.net/v1/commentaries.json'

Then inspect one commentary's coverage and read a chapter:

curl --fail --silent --show-error \
  'https://commentaries.getbible.net/v1/clarke/books.json'

curl --fail --silent --show-error \
  'https://commentaries.getbible.net/v1/clarke/43/1.json'

Resource	Link
Complete v1 guide	Commentaries v1
Current catalog	commentaries.json
API service	commentaries.getbible.net
Upstream v1 documentation	Version 1 documentation
OpenAPI specification	OpenAPI JSON
Builder source	getbible/v1_study_builder
Generated data	getbible/commentaries
Public support	GetBible support

Choose the right download#

Reading experience	Document
Show a chapter next to a Bible reader	{commentary}/{book}/{chapter}.json
Prepare one book for offline use	{commentary}/{book}.json
Download an entire commentary	{commentary}.json
List available books and chapters	{commentary}/books.json
Check provenance, license, and download size	{commentary}/metadata.json

Chapter documents are embedded in book documents; book documents are embedded in whole-commentary documents. Applications can reuse the same rendering logic at each level.

Verse ranges and introductions#

One comment may discuss several verses. The API stores that comment once and records its coverage in a verses array. A client looking up a verse must inspect that array when present; comparing only the anchor verse would miss comments that cover a range.

Book introductions use chapter 0. Chapter introductions use verse 0. These are study material coordinates and should be displayed separately from scripture verses.

Access and connected resources#

The published API is public and read-only. It defines no token requirement, request body, or server-side filtering. Each module's metadata records provenance, licensing, and the Bible shape used to resolve citations. Commentary text is plain text, with structured scripture references available for links to the Bible API or Query API.

Use the Dictionaries API for word definitions and Strong's lexicons, and the Bookmarks API for topic-to-verse associations.

The complete v1 guide documents every resource, exact addressing rules, response models, copyable cURL examples, reference handling, checksums, and build health.