CrossWire SWORD Commentary Modules

• Source: CrossWire Bible Society SWORD module repository
• Maintainer: CrossWire Bible Society (community-maintained)
• License: Varies per module — public-domain commentaries use public-domain-equivalent licenses. Check per module.
• Suitability Score: ⭐⭐⭐ (3/5) — requires SWORD→OSIS→JSON pipeline but this is a well-trodden path

Coverage

Format: SWORD binary modules → exportable to OSIS XML via mod2osis tool → parseable to JSON.

~10 whole-Bible English public-domain commentaries including:

Commentary	Author
Matthew Henry (Complete)	Matthew Henry
Exposition of the Entire Bible	John Gill
Notes on the Bible	Albert Barnes
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary	Jamieson, Fausset & Brown
Adam Clarke Commentary	Adam Clarke
Notes on the Bible	John Wesley
Matthew Poole's Commentary	Matthew Poole
Keil & Delitzsch (OT)	Keil & Delitzsch
Geneva Study Bible Notes	—

All verse-aligned.

Quality

Good — these are established, widely-used commentary texts. Verse alignment is built into the SWORD format. Community-maintained with decades of refinement.

Gaps Filled

• 🔶 Extended Commentary (Gap #13) — verse-aligned structured data for ~10 public-domain commentaries

Integration Notes

• Requires mod2osis CLI tool (part of SWORD project) for export, then XML→JSON conversion
• Verse references in OSIS XML are standard and mappable to GospeLib IDs
• Creates new :Commentary and :CommentaryEntry node types linked to :Passage nodes
• The conversion pipeline is ~2–4 hours of engineering effort
• Every major open-source Bible app (AndBible, BibleTime, Xiphos) uses SWORD modules — the tooling is mature