Although Bede is now known primarily as an historian, he considered himself foremost a biblical exegete, and most of his works are exegetical. He emphasized this role in the bio-bibliographic note at the end of the HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM, which suggests that there were two overlapping phases in his study of the Bible. The first covered his entire intellectual and spiritual life, beginning when, at the age of seven, he was given to the abbey of Monkwearmouth (ed. Lapidge 2010 2.478-80; trans. Colgrave and Mynors 1969 p 567):

As this passage makes clear, his study of and meditation on scripture was a life-long occupation, fit in around his other duties in the monastery, observing the monastic rule, learning, teaching, and writing.

After describing his ordinations as a deacon and a priest at the ages of nineteen and thirty, Bede focused more specifically on his biblical commentaries: “ex quo tempore accepti presbyteratus usque ad annum aetatis meae LVIIII haec in scripturam sanctam meae meorumque necessitati ex opusculis uenerabilium patrum breuiter adnotare, siue etiam ad formam sensus et interpretationis eorum superadicere curaui” (ed. Lapidge 2010 2.480; “from the time I became a priest until the fifty-ninth year of my life I have made it my business for my own benefit and that of my brothers, to make brief extracts from the works of the venerable fathers on the holy Scriptures, or to add notes of my own to clarify their sense and interpretation,” trans.