Huge free collection of bible and books for your iPhone from PocketSword

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PocketSword
iTunes Store

A powerful bible study application with lots of free resources

PocketSword is a free bible study application for your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad from crosswire, based on the Sword library.

Undoubtedly the wealth of resources available on PocketSword make it a fantastic application, but that is not all. One of the things that works very well with PocketSword is the ease with which you can access the wide array of bibles and books to enhance your study. Here is a look in more detail at some of the key features of PocketSword that make it an application you really should download onto your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch!

Lots of bibles and books!

When you first open up PocketSword you don’t have access to many books – but it is pretty easy to download more and have them available wherever you are.

Just click on the ‘more’ option, then ‘Downloads’ and you have four options for places to find books that are compatible with this iPhone application. Two of these are Crosswire’s servers, and two from external websites. It felt a bit like rummaging around in a bookshop not knowing quite what you would find (I meant that in a good way!). There are so many books I cannot possibly list them all here, but some of my favourites are:

English Bibles

• ASV
• ESV (with footnotes & cross references)
• ISV
• KJV (With Strong’s Numbering)
• LEB
• MKJV
• NET (limited notes – you can pay for full notes)
• YLT
• and many more…

Greek Bibles

• LXX/Septagint
• Textus Receptus
• Wescott-Hort with NA27/UBS4 variants (with Strong’s numbers and Morphological tags)
• Tischendorf’s 8th Edition
• and many more…

Hebrew Bibles

• Modern Hebrew Bible
• Open Scriptures Morphological Hebrew Bible (inlcuding Strong’s numbers, Footnotes and more)
• and more…

Other Non English Bibles

• Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic
• Chinese
• Dutch
• French
• German
• Italian
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish
• Tagalog
• Urdo
• and many more…

Commentaries

• John Gill’s Expositor
• Luther’s Commentary in Selected Bible Passages
• Barnes New Testament Notes
• Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary
• Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary (Concise comes bundled with the app)
• Charles Spurgeon’s Treasury of David
• John Wesley’s Notes on the Bible
• Calvin’s Collected Commentary on the Bible
• Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible
• and many more…

Dictionaries/Lexicons etc.

• Maps
• Strong’s Greek Bible Dictionary
• Inverted Strong’s Real Greek
• Strong’s Hebrew Bible Dictionary
• Inverted Strong’s Real Hebrew
• Vine’s Expository Dictionary
• Easton’s Bible Dictionary
• Smith’s Bible Dictionary
• Liddell Scott – An Intermeiate Greek-English Lexicon
• Strong’s Dictionary of Bible Words
• ISBE
• and many more…

Daily Devotions

• Charles Spurgeon’s Morning & Evening
• Various bible reading plans
• and more…

Phew! I expect you could almost fill your iPhone if you downloaded everything!

Powerful & Customisable Bible Text

PocketSword is very customisable so for any bible you can pick from preferences on various options (depending on the translation). You can change fonts, choose whether it should be red letter, whether to include footnotes, cross references or Strong’s numbers. Because these can be done on per book basis it is handy as you can have one translations which is just for reading, and maybe another which you use for more detailed analysis of words.

Cross References, footnotes & Strong numbering are well implemented. Just tap the greyed out number of letter and the verses or Strongs reference will be pop up at the bottom. It is very fast and easy to use.

Dictionaries & Commentaries

There is a separate button on the bottom menu which takes you to any of the commentaries you have loaded for that verse. Once again it is easy and quick to switch between the commentaries that are loaded.

The dictionary does not directly link from the bible text, but you can use the normal iPhone method to copy and paste a word. Once you are searching for a word, you can once again move throughout all of the dictionaries or encyclopaedias with relative ease.

Within the commentary section, if you have downloaded the book ‘Personal Commentary’ then you will be able to take your notes on any bible verses.

Reading Plan and Daily Devotionals

There are various reading plans for the bible available which I always think is handy on a device like the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. But also any daily devotionals you have, such as Charles Spurgeon’s Morning & Evening, can easily be read on a daily basis.

Hebrew & Greek!

Hebrew and Greek bibles are available, as well as morphological analysis and lexicons (via the dictionary). This is very helpful to allow you to dig deeper into the words that the English was based on.

Well implemented

Overall, PocketSword is really enjoyable to use – from unearthing the great free books to actually being able to easily use them. There are quite a lot of options available which makes it flexible and powerful, but this well implemented so that the small screen size does not get cluttered.

With some good dictionaries and commentaries you can’t get elsewhere for free on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch – you really can’t go wrong getting this free download!